Fall From Grace
by SUPRNTRAL LVR
Summary: Set after Furt, only Kurt doesn't go to Dalton. The only problem is, the bullying is about to rise to an unbearable that Kurt didn't even believe possible...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**Firstly... I can't believe I'm writing a Glee fanfiction. I've always insisted that the programme is a bunch of feel good rubbish. But I have recently been forced to watch an episode by Ginger and have been hit with a certain realisation - Kurt is portrayed so well by both the actor and the writers and is probably the best part of the entire series. I cannot get enough of him. He also has a history and a great depth to his character. And he's angsty.**

**Sooo I find myself writing a Glee fanfiction all about Kurt... who have thunk it?**

**This fanfic takes place after 'Furt'. One little change - there's never any mention of Dalton, and the newly weds go off on their honeymoon as planned. I'm sure this has been done tons of times before but hopefully you'll like it. Also goes into Karofsky's head a little more than the episodes seem to have.**

**Warning: includes violence, bullying, and possibly some bad language.**

"No."

"What?"

"Just _no._"

Finn looked down at himself, hands spread, eyebrows arched, face lined with confusion and surprise. Kurt cast his eyes skywards as if begging for help from above, flinging his arms wide, huffing out a loud sigh of frustration.

"Have I taught you nothing? Do you even listen to me when I talk to you about what you wear? _Well?"_

Finn blinked, clearly at a loss as to what he had done that was so awful. Kurt screwed his thumbs into his eyes in despair, then flicked his hand over Finn's clothes, lip curling as if he had just encountered a particularly horrible pair of shoes cowering in the corner of a charity shop.

"_Look. _You're wearing a _black _top, and _a navy _jacket. How many times do I have to tell you that you must never – _never – _mix black and navy like that? Why, why, why would you do this to me, Finn?"

Finn smirked, relaxing. He pushed up from the table, carrying his empty cereal bowl over to the sink. He dunked it there and crossed the kitchen to scoop up his bag from the floor.

"From the way you were talking I thought I'd insulted Gaga or something. Relax, Kurt, it's no big deal."

Kurt stared at him in horror. "No big deal? Finn!"

"And I'm leaving without you if you don't finish up now. I'm starting the car."

"Go and change!"

"Starting it now…"

This last statement was thrown over his shoulder as he slipped out of the front door. Kurt dropped his head into his hands, muttering under his breath, and then slowly stood and put his own bowl away. Properly away – he rinsed it, dried it, and replaced it in the cupboard before tossing a disapproving glance at Finn's neglected cornflakes. He took a few moments to choose a jacket that would effectively compliment his shoes, then heaved his satchel onto his shoulder and walked slowly out into the driveway. Finn revved the engine of his car impatiently.

"Still don't see why I can't just take my own car."

"Because your Dad said it was stupid to spend money on fuel for both of us when we can just go together."

"Dad's not even here. And why do we have to use _your_ car? It smells bad. Did you even open that freshener I bought you?"

Finn turned on the radio and switched the volume up until it drowned out Kurt's complaints. Kurt opened his mouth, and then closed it again and slumped back in his seat, grumbling. He knew when he was beaten.

It was only a couple of days into his father's honeymoon, and so far things had been going surprisingly smoothly. Of course, Finn couldn't cook, didn't clean, and had no idea what to do when the car made a strange sound, but Kurt didn't care about that too much. Finn's absence from the kitchen meant that he could decide on the evening's meal himself. As for the cleaning part, Kurt had decided to leave Finn's 'side' of the basement alone and deal only with his own. And aside from the growing pile of clothes and towels around the other boy's bed, that system appeared to be working.

He watched the streets fly past them, fingering the clasp of his bag. There was, of course, another upside to walking through the doors of the High school with Finn at his side every morning. Perhaps that was the reason why he had not encountered Karofsky in the corridors since that tense interview in Sylvester's office. He had even dared to hope that Karovsky might have got the message and decided to finally leave him alone. Of course, Kurt had also been careful to only step into the corridors when the next class was actually starting to ensure that he wouldn't run into the jock, and had taken to meeting Finn outside the doors of his last lesson so that he didn't need to leave the building alone. Perhaps Karofsky just hadn't had a chance to strike…

The car stopped and Kurt blinked, brought back to the present with a bump. He found himself looking at the High school car park . He shook himself, alarmed that he had managed to drift off for so long. Finn shoved open his door and Kurt climbed out quickly, anxious not to let the other boy leave him behind. He glanced quickly across campus as they made their way towards the front doors of the school, his mouth turning dry as he seared for the tall, beefy figure that always sent his stomach clenching into a tight ball.

"Kurt? Hello?"

Kurt flinched as Finn's hand landed on his shoulder. He brushed the other boy off, scowling in an attempt to cover the fear that had suddenly leapt through his veins.

"What?" he hissed.

"Are you okay? You didn't hear a word I just said, did you?"

Kurt felt his face flushing and looked away quickly, focussing on adjusting the strap of his bag as they moved into the corridor. Finn sighed but dropped the subject as Rachel appeared, his mind swinging to other issues.

"See you in Glee club?"

Kurt nodded, slowing to a halt as Finn peeled off from him to greet Rachel. The back of his neck prickled and he glanced around once more, convincing himself that Karovsky really was nowhere to be seen before heading for his first lesson, his heart heavy in his chest.

* * *

His lessons passed quickly, serving a welcome distraction to the desperate fear that rushed through him every time he stepped into the seething corridors. He even managed to forget about Karofsky completely at break, his mind centred instead on a heated debate with Mercedes about what their next assignment would be. He was certain another female star would be lined up for them – perhaps Kylie – but Mercedes insisted that they would be back to Journey music before long. And that lead to a shameless bitch over Mr. Schue's taste in music, which both of them couldn't help but enjoy. And then a bout of complaints from Mercedes about her Math teacher, who apparently had it in for her.

And before he knew it, it was time for Glee club and he hadn't seen Karofsky once.

He couldn't help the grin that had crept onto his face as he headed for his locker. It was a bold move – he had only been visiting his locker with at least one other person hauled along with him recently – but for the first time in a while he didn't care. For the first time in a while, he felt just a little bit stronger. He swapped some folders, retrieved his sheet music, paused to smile at the photograph of Blaine he had taped to his locket. The boy's smile was infectious; whenever Kurt saw that photograph, he felt anxious butterflies in his stomach and wild excitement pulse in his heart beat. And if only Blaine would feel the same way… Well, that had to be pushing his luck a little too far. But he couldn't help but think that there was something in Blaine's smile that flickered just for him, something in the way he looked at him that was a little more special than the way he looked at everybody else. Just…something. He shut his locker, pulling his bag over his head once more, turning away from the metal walls.

It happened so quickly. One moment he was alone, and then next Karofsky was just _there. _Kurt froze at once, his heart juddering to a halt, his blood running cold in his veins. He stared into Karofsky's burning, furious glare.

_Courage._

"What do you want?" he demanded. His voice trembled, betraying him at once. Karofsky's lips twitched into a mocking smirk.

"You've been hiding from me, you little fag," the bigger boy growled, not bothering to lift his voice. "Using all your little friends as bodyguards. You're an ugly little coward, you know that?"

Kurt opened his mouth, and then shut it again quickly. It was as if all the strength Blaine had been pouring into him was draining away faster than he could reach for it. Every word Karofsky said sent a horrible twist through his gut. Already his palms were sweating, his knees shaking. He swallowed hard, doing his best to keep his game face on.

"I'm not the coward here," he replied, his hands clenching on his bag. "I'm not the one who's so scared of himself that he has to take it out on everyone else."

"What'd you say to me?"

Kurt wet his lips, his eyes darting quickly around. He realised with a horrible jolt that the corridor was almost empty. No one he knew was in sight, no one he could appeal to for help. He was on his own. Every instinct was screaming at him to get away, just run.

"Leave me alo–"

"Or what? You'll do what?"

Karofsky was moving closer, herding him back against the lockers. Kurt fixed his gaze on the ground, his heart pounding in his stomach. He tried to breathe, tried to control himself. He couldn't keep giving in like this. He had to be strong. He opened his mouth to speak – and Karofsky's fist slammed into his jaw.

It was so sudden, so unexpected, and Kurt was completely unprepared. Pain exploded through his lip and his head snapped back to collide sharply with the lockers. He felt his legs give out, felt the ground ram into his knee as he dropped downwards. He managed to fling out his hands before he could crash face first into the floor. He crouched there, panting, his eyes blurred with tears of shock and pain. He felt his lip blindly, and his hand came away slick with blood mixed with saliva. He swallowed hard, tasted something coppery.

He lifted his head slowly, found himself staring into Karofsky's glare once more. The other boy lifted his fist again, then laughed at the violent flinch that rolled through Kurt's body at the gesture. He scooped up Kurt's bag, turned it upside down, and kicked the contents right across the corridor. Kurt watched him silently, unable to speak, unable to think through the abruptness of what had just happened. Karofsky finished his work and turned on his heel, striding off towards the football field, clearly pleased with himself.

Kurt stared at a page of his History homework which lay torn on the ground in front of him. He could feel hot tears skidding down his cheeks, feel sobs bunching in his throat. He tried to take a deep breath – it shuddered in and came out fast and thick. He wiped at his mouth, succeeding only in smudging blood across his cheek. He wiped at it desperately, then crawled forwards and started to scoop up his belongings, brushing furiously at his tears as he did so. He heard footsteps, felt his face flush red as a group of girls walked past, sniggering at his efforts. He turned his back on them quickly, hiding his face. God, he couldn't let people see him in this state. He finished collecting his things and rammed them back into his bag as fast as he could, then surged to his feet and practically ran to the bathroom. Girls bathroom – he couldn't bear risking running into Karovsky, and barely anyone used the West toilets anyway. He shoved his way inside, a violent sob finally tearing from his lips.

It took him a while for him to collect himself enough to start tidying up his appearance in the clouded mirrors. He splashed water over his face, wiped at his eyes, pushed his hair back into a more presentable style. He retrieved a wad of toilet paper and pressed it against his bleeding lip. The area was still tender, and he could see the dark mark of a bruise forming. This was going to be difficult to hide. He leant back against the wall, waiting for the bleeding to stop, trying to breathe deeply.

Never had Karofsky done something like that. Never had it been so sudden, so vicious, so unexpected.

Of course Kurt had been hit before, but never quite like that. Never had it been so personal. Before it had always been a duty, just another beating for the pathetic Gleeks of the school. And never had Kurt himself felt so humiliated, so utterly destroyed…

_"Or what? You'll do what?"_

Kurt felt tears spread down his cheeks again. He just couldn't stop them. His lip had stopped bleeding by now, although it had swelled a little. Not too obvious, but there was no chance at all that the others wouldn't notice. And he was so late now that there was no way he was going to be able to slip into the room without being the centre of attention. He blinked hard, doing his best to rid himself of the persistent tears of shame that refused to leave him. And he couldn't stop shaking.

He had to wait another fifteen minutes before his eyes had stopped watering and he looked more or less normal, excluding the dull bruise that now stood out against his pale skin. He still couldn't stop his hands from trembling, but it couldn't be helped. If he didn't go now, his absence would draw more concern than his entrance. He gathered himself, took a few deep breaths, and then left the safety of the bathroom.

The Glee club hadn't begun a song by the time he reached the door – he could hear them talking, but no singing. Robbed of his one last chance to enter unnoticed, he shut his eyes for a moment, and then stepped through the door and into the choir room. They were grouped on the chairs, all holding music. Rachel was talking loudly, apparently deaf to the mutterings of the rest of the group, about her own solo. She noticed him and gestured to him happily, spreading her hands.

"… and Kurt will back me up on that! Won't you, Kurt?"

Mr. Schue turned, smiling at Kurt's arrival. "Kurt, there you are. You're late, you know. We're just…"

His voice trailed off and his eyes narrowed. His gaze moved to Kurt's lip. Slowly, the rest of them fell silent too as one by one they noticed the dark, throbbing bruise. Kurt clenched his teeth together, pushing past Mr. Schue and heading for a seat to the left of the group. He felt their eyes on him as he sat down, pulled off his bag with fumbling fingers.

"Kurt?"

He looked up, his lips pressed together tightly. Mr. Schue was watching him, his gaze flickering. He crossed to him and lowered his voice, as if that would make any difference.

"You alright, Kurt?"

"I'm fine." His voice came out too thin and uneven to be convincing. He felt tears burn in his eyes again and looked away quickly, finding a sudden interest in his coat sleeve.

"Do you want to talk about anything with me? Perhaps more privately?"

He didn't trust his voice. He shook his head instead. Mr. Schue hesitated. The silence in the room roared in his ears, and he clenched his shaking hands in his lap. Mr. Schue slowly held out a copy of the sheet music.

"Here. Rachel was just expressing her opinion on your newest assignment… ah, Rachel? Care to repeat that for Kurt?"

He strode back to the middle of the room. Rachel cleared her throat, then began to speak once more. Kurt couldn't understand a word she was saying. He couldn't read the words on the sheets in his trembling fingers. He laid them flat in his lap, forcing air past the thick lump in his throat and into his tight lungs. A hand touched his arm.

"You okay?" Mercedes whispered, leaning down from the row behind him to whisper. "Kurt, what happened? Somebody hit you?"

He shook her hand off. She pulled back, stung. He couldn't look at her. He couldn't look at any of them.

**First chapter over! Sorry to say it, but Kurt's day is about to get a lot worse... Thanks for reading. Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**Warning: includes violence, bullying, and possibly some bad language. Set just after Furt.**

The moment the bell rang for their next period, Kurt was on his feet. He hauled his satchel onto his shoulder and let the sheet music drop from his fingers onto the chair behind him. He'd barely even looked at it throughout the meeting; he didn't even know what song it was. Mr. Schue tried to take his arm as he passed, clearly hoping to have a little heart-to-heart, but Kurt brushed him off and quickened his pace. He didn't care what the others thought of him. The sheer humiliation of the glaring cut on his lip was destroying him. It was as if Karofsky had left a brand on him, a sickening, tattoo to show all the world how pathetic he was, how weak, how passive…

Mercedes' footsteps were drumming behind him. He pretended not to hear her when she called for him, but he couldn't ignore her when she grabbed his jacket and held on, refusing to let him go. He stopped at last, doing his best to avoid her gaze. She pulled him around to face her, trying to touch his lip, her eyes wide.

"Why wouldn't you talk to me? God, Kurt, look at you… It was Karofsky, wasn't it?"

He pushed her hand away. "Don't."

She let her hand fall, blinking in surprise, clearly hurt. Guilt washed over him at once, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't stand their concern. Every time they reached out to him, he felt even more alienated. When he was alone, he felt so vulnerable that he found himself desperate for any kind of company. When he started using groups for protection, he felt like the most pathetic, worthless, helpless creature on the entire planet. He felt like everything Karofsky told him he was. It was a vicious circle, and he was sick of it.

He tried to side-step her, but she moved into his way, her dark eyes burning defiantly. "Hey! I thought we all decided that we were going to get you through this. I thought we agreed we were going to help you–"

"And what are you going to do?" he demanded, his voice cracking before he could even attempt to disguise the tremor in his throat. "You can't watch me all the time. I don't _want _to be watched all the time! And still, every time I turn around, I know he's going to be there!"

"You can't give in to him, Kurt!"

He shut his eyes, searching for words that could put what he was thinking into words, but nothing would come out. She could never understand how he was feeling, she had never felt that gnawing, bottomless hole that had crept into his stomach and was slowly consuming him. He looked at her again, pushing his fringe out of his face – and a shoulder rammed into his chest in a flash of yellow and red. Caught off guard, he found himself hurled back against the wall, his legs tangling helplessly. He could dimly hear Mercedes crying out in indignation, darting to his side in a flurry of anger, he could hear the rumbling response from the tall boy in the football jacket… He could taste bile. His heart was pounding so hard that he could barely differentiate between beats; his chest had grown unbearably tight, an invisible fist closing around his lungs. He forced himself to lift his eyes…

Dirty blonde hair, a lop-sided smirk, a skinnier frame. Another footballer, called Ross, if he remembered rightly. And he was already leaving, perhaps unnerved by Mercedes' furious abuse.

Kurt tasted bile. He shut his eyes, trying to swallow it back, trying to breathe through the vice in his throat. He knew the blood had drained from his face, knew that he was trembling again worse than ever.

"… such an idiot," Mercedes was saying scathingly. "Brain the size of a toenail. Don't you dare pay any attention to that jerk… Kurt? God, Kurt, can you hear me?"

But real nausea was rising up inside him now, and he couldn't try to pretend he was imagining it any more. Suddenly horribly aware of what was about to happen, he bolted past her and sprinted for the nearest bathroom for the second time that day. Only this time he barely had time to lock the door of his cubicle and stumble to his knees on the dirty tiled floor before he retched.

It wasn't the first time he had thrown up, but it that didn't make it any more pleasant. He gripped the toilet seat with white-knuckled hands, shut his eyes, and did his best to hold out and endure. He could feel tears blazing out of his eyes again, this time from the lurching sickness in his side. It felt like hours before his stabbing retches finally gave way to dry heaves, and then a steady, weary spluttering that left him weak and shivery. He sat down heavily on the ground, leant back against the cubicle wall. He wiped the back of his hand across his lips, trying to pant, swallow and sniff at the same time and managing to achieve nothing at all.

Slowly, he became aware of Mercedes calling his name. She was outside his cubicle – he could see her sneakers under the door. She banged twice, her voice small and panicked, laced with real fear. He pressed his hands over his face, trying to silence his shuddering breaths.

"Please, please answer me, Kurt. Just tell me you're okay, please? Kurt, you're really scaring me. Just say something!"

His lips wouldn't work. She kept trying, kept begging, close to tears herself. She had fallen silent before he could muster the strength to get out even a couple of words.

"I'm okay."

He heard a rattle as she pressed herself against the door. "Please open the door."

He shook his head. She couldn't see him, but she seemed to understand all the same. He heard her sigh heavily.

"Please?"

"I just… I want to be on my own."

"Kurt, don't be like this. We can fix this, we'll call the others in."

"Mercedes just… just go."

She stayed a little longer anyway, hovering just outside the door in silence. He shut his eyes, imagining that his whole body had suddenly gone completely numb, leaving his mind free to pull away from the disgusting mess in the toilet beside him, the hard floor, the ache in his throat. And eventually, after a long, long pause, she left him alone. He remained on the ground, his eyes shut, blocking himself off from the world. His mobile hummed with text after text, but he ignored them all. He didn't cry this time. He didn't think. He just sat. Just for once, he didn't want to feel anything at all. Just for once he wanted to fall into himself and lie there in darkness until the stabbing emotions in his gut had left him alone.

He had no idea how much time had passed when he opened his eyes at last, but his lashes were heavy and his arm had begun to tingle, caught between his weight and the corner. He sat up, flexing it gingerly, and sat motionless for a few seconds. A tap was dripping steadily. It rang eerily through the thick silence like gunshots, and he realised that he could hear no one in the corridor outside, no distant voices chattering or laughing, nothing at all. He reached for his mobile, eyebrows jumping at the number of texts clogging his inbox. Most of them seemed to be from Mercedes, pleading with him to meet her after school; there were a couple of tentative questions from the other members; there was even one from Puck offering to go 'screw with' Karofsky; there were several from Finn, first asking what was going on, then if he was okay, and then where he was. His eyes jumped to the time, and he huffed in surprise to see that it was nearly five o'clock. He'd been sitting there on the bathroom floor for over two hours. He pushed himself up to his feet, slid out of the cubicle. It was no surprise really - he hadn't exactly been sleeping all that well recently. No wonder he had so many texts from Finn - he was supposed to meet the other boy for their shared lift home after last period, which had ended a good while ago now... Perhaps he would need to walk back, or catch a bus. Finn would probably have given up and gone home alone by this time.

He studied his reflection in the mirror. His lip still looked gross, but at least it hadn't swollen up any more. He poked it, scowled. If he could find some concealer he might be able to disguise the bruise enough to avoid the stares of other students. He'd hidden bruises before. He washed out his mouth, wincing at the dry, furry taste that had invaded it, and then retrieved his bag from the floor. Then, brushing his hands wearily across his eyes, he shuffled slowly out of the bathroom. At least now there was nobody around to look, no fear that Karofsky would be lurking behind the next corner. The corridors were empty, and his solitary footsteps echoed loud as fire crackers in the dimness. The only people who would be here now would be the few straggling teachers who had some last minute task to complete in their offices, perhaps a couple of football jocks practising on the field. The caretakers wouldn't be there for another half hour at least. He was well and truly alone. And it was nice to have the space for a little while.

His locker was his first stop before he left - he still had to pick up his books he had dropped off earlier. He somehow managed to squeeze them all into his bag, not really caring if some of his work was crumpled in the process, his bag balanced on his knee. His mobile buzzed again and he let his bag drop to the ground, kicking his locker shut before glancing at the text. Finn again: _'Man, where r u? not funny. just txt me'_ He reached for his bag, flipping his mobile up to key in a response. Finn had every right to be pissed at him - of course he should have txted him before now. He hadn't meant to spend so long in the toilets. How had that even happened? He paused suddenly, and then went back to his inbox and scrolled down. He would text Finn right away... but first there was someone else he needed. He found Blaine and leant against his locker as he began to text.

_Bad day. Courage not working. Don't no what 2 do._

He sent it, felt some of the crushing heaviness leave him. Whatever Blaine said, it would surely make him feel better. He returned to Finn's message, tapped in 'sorry', and was trying to come up with a decent, believable excuse for his absence when a clatter from behind him reached his ears. He suppressed a sigh of frustration - _please, don't let it be Mr. Schue desperate for a 'chat' - _and lowered his mobile, glancing over his shoulder. His heart plunged into his stomach.

"About time. You've kept me waiting for ages, you little fag."

He reached out to touch the lockers for balance, not trusting his legs not to betray him. He tried to remain stony-faced, tried to keep breathing, but neither was going to happen. He knew that he looked terrified. He took a step backwards as the other boy began to move forwards, his pace slow. Kurt had a sudden image of a wolf stalking towards a rabbit that crouched motionless, frozen with fear, unable to run...

"You and me need to talk, homo."

He still couldn't move. His heart was hammering wildly, his mind screaming. _Get out, get out, get out! _it cried desperately, and yet his legs ignored him. He gripped his locker, aware that he was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Well? Not gonna say anything? Come on, lets hear your proud little gay rights speech!"

There was just a couple of metres between them now. And the reality of what was going on suddenly hit Kurt face on - they were completely alone. The Neanderthal could do whatever he wanted, and there would be nobody around to stop him, nobody to hold him back... Kurt's brain jolted on again and he did the only thing he could do: he ran. He turned on his heel, allowing his mobile to fly from his fingers, he sprinted for the double doors leading to the car park. He'd never run so fast in his life, but he knew he had left it too late. Within seconds the footballer was on his heels, meaty hands fisting in the back of his jacket, dragging him roughly backwards. He let out a yell as the larger boy hurled him to one side, into a dark classroom where he staggered straight into a desk. It skittered away beneath his weight and he crashed to the ground hard, pain leaping up his arm from his twisted wrist. He yelped, sheer terror exploding through him.

Karofsky was standing in the doorway. His eyes were shining with something mad, something inhuman that had Kurt's skin crawling. Something in the other boy had snapped beyond repair, and whatever it was, Kurt knew he was about to feel the punishment. He stared up at the immense form of the footballer, fear acrid in his mouth, panic fluttering in his throat. Karofsky stepped forwards.

And this time, there was no one there to help him.

**Gasp! Cliffhanger! :) Sorry, I can't help it. Just as a warning, the next chapter will include lots of violence...**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**Warning: includes lots of violence, bullying, and swearing. Set just after Furt. Not for the faint-hearted. Skip this one if you want, there will be hurt/comfort in the next chapter.**

Kurt sat on the ground, his injured wrist held tightly in his other hand, staring up into the wild, raging glare of Dave Karofsky. It was perhaps the worst position he could ever have found himself in, and yet he knew that it was about to get much, much worse. Because every line in Karofsky's face, every flicker in his gaze, everything about him was pointing towards a madman. Someone who had lost control, and was not going to hold back. There was no way that this was going to end well for either of them.

Karofsky stepped forwards.

Kurt dragged himself backwards at once, pushing the desk out of his way. Karofsky continued his slow approach, his hands curling into fists at his sides. He was holding something, Kurt noticed. A mobile. _His _mobile. Karofsky must have grabbed it when he dropped it. So there was no way he could escape and try to ring for help. He swallowed hard, returning his gaze to Karofsky's.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, his voice thin and small in the silence.

Karofsky's lip twitched. The snarl that left his lips was completely unexpected. "This is all your fault."

Kurt blinked, trying to process those words. "What?"

"Your fault," Karofsky repeated. "You had to come down to the changing rooms. You had to keep on talking like that. If you hadn't followed me, it would never have happened!"

"The kiss? This is still about that ki-"

_"Shut up!"_

Karofsky lashed out at a desk to his left; it keeled over, and Kurt had to launch himself to one side to avoid it. He scrambled backwards, his good hand flitting across the ground, searching for something - anything - that he could use to defend himself. A chair, a ruler, anything at all. Something to put between himself and Karofsky. His prayers went unanswered - Karofsky strode forwards and grabbed him by the collar before he could dodge out of the way, dragging him up to his feet with a single jerk. Kurt managed to catch himself before the twisted shirt around his neck could choke him; he clawed at Karofsky's hand, but the footballer simply pushed his face close to Kurt's, until Kurt could feel his hot breath on his face.

"I don't know how you do this to me," the footballer growled, "But I want it to stop. D'you hear me? I hate this, I don't want this!"

"When are you going to realise that its not something you choose?" Kurt replied heatedly, pulling at his grip. Karofsky was barely allowing his feet to touch the ground, and the pressure on his neck was slowly increasing. "This has nothing to do with me! This is about you!"

"This is _not _me! I'm _not _a fucking homo!"

Karofsky shoved him hard, and he fell against the desks for the second time, this time managing to remain on his feet. He staggered away from the taller boy, desperate to put some kind of distance between them however small. Karofsky moved after him. He was still speaking, his voice almost breathless, his eyes suddenly bright with tears.

"Why the hell do you have to have it so easy? Everyone thinks you're so damn special, everyone treats you like you're made of gold! You know what my dad would say? You know what my friends would do to me?"

Kurt had no idea what to say. What could he say to something like that? He opened his mouth, and then suddenly felt a wall against his back. Karofsky had backed him straight into a corner. He felt blind panic surge through him, but there was no escape now. He knew that the moment he tried to move, Karofsky would be on him faster than he could blink. Besides, he was shaking so violently that he was sure he wouldn't have managed three steps.

"I never felt like this until I met you," the bigger boy was saying, his voice dangerously low. "But you, you've screwed me over, you've messed with my head. You fucking made me like this, didn't you?"

Kurt was already shaking his head desperately, terrified, horribly aware that this was building up to something. "No," he said, unable to force out anything more than a whisper. "No, no, no, it doesn't work like that, please-"

He broke off sharply as the sound of his mobile reached his ears. Karofsky glanced down at the little object in his meaty fist, and then at Kurt once more, his eyes narrowing coldly.

"See what I mean? They can't stay away from you. It's disgusting, all your little friends rushing around after you. They looking for you now?"

"No."

"Bullshit. They all think you're so fucking perfect."

Kurt pressed his lips together, his heart pounding in his throat. The sheer hatred in the other boy's voice was crippling. He watched, not daring to speak, as Karofsky flipped his mobile open and opened the text. His face twitched as if he had just swallowed poison, and he looked up sharply. Kurt felt himself shudder under his gaze. Two little words dripped from his lips like drops of burning oil, scorching Kurt's hearts like real fire.

"Who's Blaine?"

Kurt wanted to look completely indifferent, but he couldn't keep the mask up. His lips trembled and he felt tears of fear stinging at his eyes, felt terror pulsing through his chest. He wanted nothing more than to snatch his mobile back and run. Because if Karofsky brought Blaine into this somehow, he knew that he was going to fall apart completely. He would never be able to look at Blaine again without remembering this moment, the humiliation, the horror, the fear. Karofsky waved the mobile at him, his voice rising.

"Who is it? Your boyfriend? The one who came crawling up with you last week? Is it?"

He didn't wait for a response - he suddenly tapped the screen and put the mobile to his ear. Kurt jerked forwards at once, making a wild grab for it, but Karofsky shoved him away.

"Don't. Please, don't. Stop it-"

And then he heard Blaine's voice, crackling through the mobile from another county, distant and tinny. That voice that had held him together so completely over the last few days, been his lifeline. And Karofsky was about to ruin everything that voice represented.

"This Blaine? I got Kurt here, he's got a message for you."

He held the mobile out, pressing it against Kurt's ear. Kurt froze, holding the other boy's gaze, his mouth dry. Blaine was speaking, his voice level and calm as usual, saying something about how there was no reason for this, to just back up and calm down... Kurt swallowed hard, wet his lips.

"It's okay, Blaine, I'm fine. I'm ju-"

He broke off with a cry as Karofsky's fist hit his face. The blow sent him doubling over, and before he could recover the footballer's knee had rammed into his stomach, driving any remaining breath from his lungs like a vacuum. He lifted his head just in time to see the knuckles coming before they connected with his nose. He felt the floor against his knees, felt heat rushing over his lip as blood spurted from his nose. Somewhere nearby he could hear Blaine's voice, which had risen a couple of octaves and suddenly become very fast. He couldn't make out what he was saying.

"So I'm right," Karofsky was snarling. "Why do you have it all, you little fag? Why does everyone care so much about you? _Why?"_

Kurt was still spluttering through the blood that was running into his mouth. He wiped at it desperately, struggling to take a breath, and tried to get up. Karofsky's muddy trainer swung into sight around half a second before it hit him. Pain blasted through his head and he heard himself scream, darkness spreading rapidly over his coppery, metallic taste was now in his mouth, in his eye. He became aware of the cold floor against his cheek and rolled over just in time to welcome Karofsky's kick into his stomach. And it hurt. A lot.

Around that time, he thought he might have blacked out for a few seconds. At least, he couldn't remember closing his eyes. But when he came back to himself they were indeed shut. Agony was spearing through his chest and stomach, and his head, and his nose… pain was everywhere. He couldn't breathe without swallowing blood. He heard himself choking, rolled heavily onto his front as he struggled to clear his throat. He forced his eyes open a crack, the blurry ground swimming into sight before him. It seemed to be tilting, moving, spinning… no, that had to be wrong. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and gasped at the mistake. It took him a while to notice that Karofsky was no longer kicking him, and a while longer before he had collected himself enough to turn his head.

The footballer had turned away from him, his hands pressed against his face. Kurt swallowed again, blood dripping from his mouth, the form of the other boy shifting and distorting. Karofsky whirled around suddenly and Kurt pushed himself upright, desperate to escape, but his head swung and it was all he could do to prevent himself from dropping straight back down again. Karofsky was storming towards him. He tried to duck out of reach but he was too slow – Karofsky caught him by the back of his jacket and dragged him into a larger gap between the desks, tossing him down unceremoniously. He winced as his head thudded against the floor and the world span sickeningly. He lifted himself off the ground again to see Karofsky standing over him, thoughts that he couldn't read rushing over his face.

"This is what you want, isn't it?" he muttered. "You want this."

His hands went to his belt. Kurt felt his heart stop in his chest. He could do nothing but stare in sheer horror as Karofsky's fingers fumbled with the silver buckle. _No. No, no, no, not happening, not happening… _He could feel his whole body shaking uncontrollably.

"Karofsky," he croaked, blood spraying from his lips.

"Isn't this what you do?" the footballer demanded shrilly. "Isn't this the screwed up kind of shit that you homos do? You've done this to me. And I'm going to make you pay for it."

"I didn't… I don't…" he couldn't get the words out. They were slurring together too much to make sense anyway. He didn't know what he was supposed to be thinking; his brain had juddered to a complete standstill. "Please," he managed at last. "Please, Dave-"

"Don't you _dare_ call me that! Don't you act like you know me!"

"I–"

"I said _shut up!"_

He'd poked the fire. The next second Karofsky's foot was hitting his side, a dull _crack _snapping through the air. Blinding pain raced through his veins and this time it didn't fade. He heard himself whimpering, dark dots dancing before his eyes. He curled in on himself as the beating began again, and then cried out as the massive fist clenched in his hair and slammed his head against the floor. He had no protection now – both arms were wrapped around his searing ribs.

Everything was spinning by the time Karofsky stopped hitting him. One side of his face was throbbing violently, his lungs had stopped working, his head was thundering with pain, his side was roaring with agony. He blinked. His own shallow, dry breathing resounded in his ears. He blinked again, managed to claw something into focus. Karofsky was unzipping his flies. And the most horrible thing was that he wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. Because blackness was pooling in the corners of his gaze, rushing in over him like thick ink. It was all over. Karofsky was saying something, and he almost sounded close to tears himself.

And in that moment before the gathering darkness took him over, he thought he heard something other than Karofsky's blaring voice. Perhaps the footballer had just hit him one too many times over the head. In any case, it sounded a lot like '_get the hell off him_'. And in the blurred glimpse of the world he was granted before everything vanished, he could have sworn he saw a tall, brown-haired boy. Kind of like Finn.

But none of that really mattered, because after that he was falling and the world was spinning, and he had nothing left to hold on to.

**Cue dramatic music!**

**Reviews are welcome. Also, as I can't decide, if you want to see Blaine make an appearence please let me know.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**I find the brotherly Finn/Kurt relationship interesting. My usual fanfiction area is Supernatural, which basically revolves around two brothers who are willing to sacrifice anything for one another. Older brother Dean is usually looking to sacrifice himself for younger brother Sam no matter what the cost, not including the latest season which I'm not all that into :/... but in comparison, Finn starts off his step-brotherhood with Kurt by acting self-centred and paranoid. He doesn't live up to the natural big brother image. Kurt is left to fight his own battles. I found that fascinating - the older brother who has no natural impulse of protectiveness, no automatic knowledge of the right thing to say or do. Hmm...**

**Just felt like sharing that little muse :)**

**Warning: includes... er, aftermath of last chapter? And a little bit of swearing.**

**Thanks for the kind reviews :)**

"Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Oh, _shit..."_

That was how it seemed to begin, although Kurt got the impression that he hadn't been aware when it had started. For a few moments he had no idea what it could be. He could only just make out the words, and they didn't really make much sense. Unless a church group had started up next door - the sound seemed far away and muffled. But then he didn't know many church groups who used that kind of language while praying. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to matter all that much right now. Something had happened, or was perhaps about to happen. Something very important. But he just couldn't remember what it was. The sound was still rumbling on, a little louder now.

"... didn't know... mobile... texting you... been... answer me... Kurt!"

He abruptly became aware of several things at once - a cold, slippery, sticky floor pressing against his face, a stabbing pain in his head and an unbearable agony shooting through his chest with every tiny breath. And once he had noticed them it was impossible to go back to the time when they hadn't existed; the sensations rushed in on him in a frenzy, tinged with the acrid taste of fear. He tried to drag his eyes open. One fluttered uselessly, the other was glued shut. Hands came down on his shoulder, his face, the voice grew louder.

"Kurt? Please, Kurt, don't do this. Just... Kurt! Hey, yeah, come on, Kurt, just wake up. Can you hear me, man? Come on, dude, I'm right here. Kurt?"

In the moment before he finally managed to wrestle his one good eye open, he knew who he was about to see. No one else called him 'dude' and expected to get away with it unscathed. He squinted up at the fuzzy, dim face of Finn that hovered over him. He looked terrified, his face white, his lip quirking, his eyes slightly red. Finn pawed at his shoulder as Kurt hazily focussed on him.

"Hey, hey, you hear me? Kurt? Please, man, give me something here."

Kurt blinked. He tried to speak and failed - there was something in his mouth that dribbled down his chin when he tried to talk. He coughed hoarsely and Finn's eyebrows climbed several inches up his head. He ducked forwards, pulling a crumpled tissue from his pocket.

"Oh god, okay, just... just stay calm, I got it..."

"F-Finn?" Kurt rasped.

"Yeah, yeah it's me. You okay, man?"

He wanted to say more, perhaps tell Finn that he didn't know where that tissue had been and definitely didn't want it anywhere near his face, but the words got stuck somewhere between his throat and his lips. He nodded instead, and then choked as his head was set on fire at the simple movement. Finn said something, but he couldn't hear it. He forced his watering eyes open once more. Finn was gripping his shoulder with one hand and had abandoned the tissue. The fingers of his other hand were red. Kurt stared at them curiously.

"Wassat?" he slurred.

Finn glanced at his fingers, then at Kurt, looking even more scared. Kurt nearly laughed. The horrified look on his face was almost comical. Finn shook his head, wiping his hand shakily on his jeans. Kurt frowned.

"Don't worry," Finn was saying, digging in his pocket. "Don't worry, just stay still. I'm calling an ambulance, they'll be here real soon, and then-"

"No!"

Dots surged in on him and he groaned, pressing one hand against his head. Finn's hand clenched on his shoulder. He took a few steadying breaths and then lifted his head again. Karofsky. Karofsky was supposed to be here... Finn was trying to catch his eye.

"Why? Kurt, why not?"

"Karofsky..."

Finn's lip curled in disgust and his face hardened. He pushed out words through clenched teeth, glancing towards the door. "He ran off when I arrived. Stupid prick. We need to call the police too, have them arrest him for assault-"

"No, no ambulance. No police."

Finn stared at him, open-mouthed, halfway to keying in the number on his mobile. "What? Kurt, you... you're not seriously suggesting we just let him walk?"

Kurt gathered the little strength that remained in his limbs and slowly began to push himself upright. Finn yelped, tried to push him down again, but then gave in and helped to lean him back against a desk. By this time Kurt's side was blazing with agony, and he felt tears forcing their way down his face. Finn shuffled closer on his knees, keeping one steadying hand on Kurt's shoulder. Kurt closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the nausea to fade and the floor to stop swinging beneath him. He tried to take a breath, but it ended in a sob when his side roared with pain in protest.

"Th-they'll t-tell Dad..." he whimpered, doing his best to control his stinging pants.

"You don't want to tell Burt? Why the hell not? He's gonna find out anyway when he gets back!"

"I kn-know..." He met Finn's incredulous gaze, pleading. "B-but he won't... find out... on his honeymoon. I c-can't do that... t-to him."

"Kurt..."

"It's the f-first time... he's been this happy... s-since Mum," Kurt insisted thickly. "I w-won't... d-destroy that."

"But _look _at yourself!" Finn cried. "Kurt you look... When I got here, I thought you were-"

He broke off abruptly, and the word he had been about to say hung awkwardly in the air between them. Kurt lifted a trembling hand to his lips, wiped at the slippery blood that clung to his skin. He was becoming more aware of it now - it was coating the side of his face and running from his nose and lip in a slow, steady stream. He fingered his head gingerly, winced as a gash at his temple seared at his touch. He moved to the back of his skull where he could feel a small, painful lump.

"What if there's something really wrong?" Finn persisted. "What if you've got some kind of serious injury? What then?"

"Then..." Kurt blinked slowly. He was suddenly feeling so tired, as if he had been awake for weeks. His eyes closed of their own accord and he pushed them open again wearily. He realized that Finn was still waiting for an answer, and tried to remember the question. "Then... tomorrow, if I f-feel bad, we'll go to... to the hospital. Just... wait 'till tomorrow."

Finn didn't look convinced, but he was wavering. He sighed, kneaded the knuckles of one hand against his head. Kurt's gaze slid out of focus. He blinked again, harder this time, doing his best to hold out for just a little longer. Why was he so exhausted? He felt a sudden wave of emotion hit him, felt the little composure he had left break. He couldn't take any more. The tears started afresh and he sucked in a jagged breath.

"Please, F-Finn," he whimpered. "Please, c-can we just... just go h-home?"

Finn sighed heavily, but then at last nodded. "All right," he muttered. "Okay. We'll go. You think you can walk?"

Kurt felt sick at the thought. He wrapped an arm around his side, dreading the motion that would take him from the floor to his feet. He wet his lips and jerked his head in an uncertain 'yes'. Finn seemed to notice his discomfort; he shuffled closer and put an arm around his shoulders. Kurt sat up slowly, dragged his legs beneath him. Finn had hold of his jacket with both hands, a fist on either sleeve.

"Okay, ready? One, two..."

He pulled upwards. Kurt braced himself and attempted to use his legs. Instantly the world span wildly and he felt his knees buckle, colours blurring, objects turning fuzzy and grey... He clenched his jaw against the agony that spurted up his side, forcing him to hunch over. He could feel his whole body shaking, and knew that he would have ended up straight back on the floor again if Finn hadn't been beside him to keep him up. The other boy had both arms around him tightly, supporting most of his weight.

"Kurt? Don't worry, I gotcha... Kurt, breathe, come on, man..."

His voice was climbing higher. If Kurt wasn't careful, he'd be on his way to a hospital whether he liked it or not. With a huge effort, he forced himself to take some of his own weight and lifted his head, driving a few tight pants in through his gritted teeth. Blood mixed with saliva swung from his mouth in a thin strand - he wiped at it clumsily, trying to hide the sight from Finn. He managed to straighten up, gripping his side tightly as it sent another pulse of pain through him. The taller boy took a step forwards and Kurt followed, attempting the incomprehensible distance to the door without assistance. Their progress was slow – every step was torture, every breath blazed in his lungs like a hot poker. Somehow they made it out of the door, stepped into the dark corridor. Kurt squinted through his own fuzzy, wavering vision and just about made out the light of the doors head of them. He'd been so close to escape. His legs shook and the blood was pounding in his head like a miniature storm. Finn stayed beside him, his grip on Kurt's jacket still strong, hovering close enough to catch him if he fell. Which was lucky because after around twenty seconds that was exactly what he did.

"Whoa, whoa," Finn said, scrabbling to hold Kurt up as the other boy staggered heavily against him. Kurt only saved himself from the drop by snatching hold of Finn's coat, but the jerking action tore through his injured side like barbed wire and he let go at once. He fell to his knees, kept upright only by Finn who had the sense to drop with him rather than try to pull him in any direction. Kurt could hear his voice as he doubled over, curling both arms around his ribs.

"Okay, okay, you're okay… The door's right there, we're real close. Let's get you up, okay?"

A gentle tug on his arm. A moan escaped his lips. The dots were back again, swarming in on him like bees, blocking out almost everything around him. He just wanted to stay here on the floor forever, or at least until this blinding pain had receded. He blinked hard, made out a large spatter of blood on his jacket sleeve. He stared at it in surprise. How was he ever to get that out? This jacket was going to be ruined after today…

"Kurt? Come on, you wanted to go home, right?"

Another tug. He shook his head sluggishly, begging that the hammer pounding against his skull would stop just for a second. Finn wasn't giving in this time: he shook Kurt slightly, bending closer. Kurt huffed as pain reverberated through him. He bit his lip, tried to rise. Another mistake, and his body punished him for it in every possible way it could. He sank down again, sobbing thickly, the floor bucking mockingly beneath him. He felt himself begin to keel over, rescued again by Finn's arm.

"God, Kurt, you're a mess…"

If he'd had a mirror and less on his mind, he might have stopped at once to check his hair to see what 'mess' Finn might be referring to. As it was, he could barely think past the agony clouding his mind and choking his chest. Finn's hand brushed over his forehead, pushing his hair to the side. Had it fallen out of place? He wanted to inspect it with his own fingers, but he didn't risk removing his arms from his midriff should his inside spill all over the floor. He could feel a cold sweat standing out on his neck and forehead, sticking his shirt to his back. He couldn't take another step, couldn't bear to move.

"Okay." Finn's voice sounded softer, quieter. "Come here. I gotcha, c'mon…"

He was pulling at him, tugging him into a sitting position. Kurt let him, unable to shake him off, unable to protest. He felt an arm slide under his knees, another move around his shoulders. And then the ground abruptly fell away as Finn stood. The corridor bounced slowly up and down between flashes of darkness, accompanied by a stab of pain every time. Kurt frowned, then rolled his head to the side and found it coming to a rest against a shoulder that smelt of footballer lockers and aftershave.

"Yurcarme?" he mumbled. He'd meant to say 'Are you carrying me' but the words had slurred together and turned into an unintelligible mix that made little or no sense. Finn sniggered under his breath, turning to shove something with his back. A sudden cool breeze flew across Kurt's skin.

"Don't you dare get any ideas," Finn muttered.

Kurt scowled. And it was around that time that things began to become more disjointed. It was as if he went from the floor of the corridor to Finn's arms and then suddenly found himself in the passenger seat of Finn's car in barely any time at all. Finn vanished for a while, a couple of minutes, and then was shoving his way into the car again in a rush, Kurt's satchel in one hand. And then they were driving, and Kurt couldn't remember him starting the car. Finn was talking again.

"Stay awake, yeah? You're gonna be fine. Just listen to me, okay?"

Kurt wanted to complain that he was very much awake and that it was Finn who kept disappearing and reappearing at random moments, but his tongue was leaden. He felt like there was something he needed to mention, something about his phone. Or a call to his phone, or a text, or something. He tried to tell Finn about it, but then suddenly his door had opened and he realized that the car had stopped. He blinked, forcing his eyes open. The breeze was back, whispering against the blood on his cheek. Finn's hand was in his line of vision – the other boy was jostling his shoulder gently.

"Kurt? We're here, man, we're home. Ready to get out?"

Kurt squinted past him in disbelief. Sure enough, he could just about make out their house in the gathering darkness. But it was supposed to take twenty minutes to drive from school to home. How had Finn managed to do it so quickly? In mere seconds in fact… He realized that Finn had actually asked him a question and gazed owlishly at him, doing his best to think of a decent answer to something that he simply couldn't remember. Finn was reaching across him to unbuckle his seat belt – when had it been put on? – and then began to pull him out of the car. Kurt reached shakily for the door, searching for support, but before he could even begin to think of carrying his own weight Finn had scooped him up once more, as if he were a five-year-old child rather than a teenager. He shoved the door shut with his shoulder, then turned towards the house. Kurt lifted a hand dazedly, taking hold of Finn's shirt. Finn glanced at him.

"You okay, man?"

Kurt mouthed silently, a goldfish out of its tank. That important thing, the thing to do with his mobile, it was hovering on the edge of his memory. He was sure he needed to let Finn know about it. Why couldn't he remember what it was? His eyes drooped half-closed as Finn moved awkwardly into the house, careful to avoid making contact with the wall or door. That familiar smell rushed in on Kurt in a comforting rush and he let his eyes shut. Finn was still walking, taking him somewhere. He stopped suddenly and Kurt came into contact with something that sank around him, something that smelt vaguely of oil. His side blazed with pain as Finn let go and he hissed, twisting his face into the large cushions… the sofa. He was on the sofa. He peered through his lashes, making out the ceiling, the lamp shade, the cluttered coffee table, the television… he was home. A weary smile spread over his face.

"God, Kurt…"

Finn was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, raking his hands through his hair. His shirt was stained with red patches across the shoulder. He pressed both hands over his eyes, then looked back at Kurt.

"I should've gone to the ER. Look at you…"

"F-Finn…"

He met Kurt's gaze, still shaking his head, his face taught with fear. Kurt smiled again, his stare flickering out of focus once more. Everything was turning hazy, dark clouds closing in over him. He managed to get it out before he gave in to the mercifully numb blackness.

"… th-thank you."

**Not as much as a cliffhanger as last time, right? Hope you enjoyed.**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**And in case anyone was wondering, Karofsky WILL be appearing again... (Jaws soundtrack)...**

**Thank you for the reviews.**

Kurt jolted awake as a sharp pain speared through his head. He sat bolt upright and then muffled a scream; he had forgotten how tender his ribs were to every little movement he dared to make. He curled in on himself, holding his breath, his face screwed up tightly until the pain began to subside. It was only then that he began to take notice of the voice that was rambling loudly beside him.

"...sorry, sorry! I didn't mean... sorry, Kurt, you okay? Kurt?"

Kurt pressed his face into the sofa cushions, absorbing himself in the familiar smell of it, the homeliness of it. He allowed a couple of shallow gasps of air into his lungs, and then gingerly straightened again. Finn's hand was on his shoulder. He squinted blearily at the other boy, lifting a hand to his head. The gash at his temple was exploding with pain. He held his palm over it, closing his eyes tightly.

"What're… you doing?" he rasped thickly.

Finn held up a towel from the bathroom. One corner of it was stained dark red. Kurt stared at it, and then at Finn, who shrugged guiltily. He reached out again, but Kurt swatted his hand away. Finn scowled, sat down heavily on the coffee table.

"I was just trying to clean you up! You haven't seen yourself…" his voice trailed off and he bit his lip, as if he had said something rude.

"Well, don't," Kurt snapped back, slowly leaning back again. "You're about as sensitive as a pit-bull."

"You can't just lie there covered in blood. I was trying to help–"

"Well, it hurt!"

He had raised his voice too loudly; his head throbbed violently. He closed his eyes, screwing his fingers into them. They came away wet. He blinked at them dimly. Finn was right – he had just put a new layer of blood over his fingertips. He felt along his head a little more carefully, encountering a large crust of dried blood that clung to his skin and matted in his hair. It hurt to much to poke any further; he dropped his hand again quickly. He was feeling tired again. Very tired. He glanced around wearily as Finn threw the towel down. It was dark. The room was lit dully by the lamp in the corner, but between the curtains on the window Kurt could just make out a line of dark sky. He frowned.

"What time is it?" he muttered.

"Past ten," Finn replied sulkily. "You just passed out as soon as we got back. I was gonna wait until you woke up, but it was getting late and…" He spread his hands helplessly. "How do you feel?"

Kurt shook his head, then winced. "Like Lady Gaga just walked all over me in her spikiest heels. Nope, worse than that."

"You sound better than before."

"Hmm." Kurt shut his eyes once more.

"Hey, hey!" Finn took his arm, jostling him. Kurt sucked in a sharp breath as his ribs seared. "C'mon, we need to take a look at you. I still think we should call for an ambulance."

"I'll do't myself," Kurt slurred, waving him off. "Gerroff…"

"Kurt…"

"Finn, my head's killing me, just get–"

He broke off, his eyes snapping open as a series of loud bangs tore through the house. Finn jerked up, his whole body tense, his eyes fixed on the front door. Kurt, unable to move from the sofa, gazed up at him and waited for a reaction that would tell him whether to panic or not. On second thoughts, it was too late for that decision. Already he could feel his hands turning clammy, feel his heart beginning to pound in terror, his lungs tightening… He swallowed hard, and then flinched as the bangs came again, harder this time. Finn took a few quick steps towards the front door, and then stopped. He looked back at Kurt. Kurt tried to claw his way up, and then fell back as agony shot through his chest, bringing hot tears to his eyes.

"Just… just stay there," Finn said quietly. "I'll… deal with it."

He turned to face the door, then strode towards it. Kurt clenched his fists on the cushions of the sofa, doing his best to breathe evenly. There was no guarantee that it was going to be Karofsky, no reason at all for the footballer to come here of all places, nothing to suggest that it would be him outside… He could hear Finn lingering beside the door, where the banging came again. He heard the letter box swing open, heard a muffled voice. His gut twisted.

And then he heard the door click open.

"Who?" Finn's voice said, tinged with confusion.

The answer was quiet; Kurt couldn't work out who it was. Could it be Karofsky? Maybe it was… he wished Finn would stop dithering in the doorway and come and tell him what was going on, but he didn't dare make a sound. If it was Karofsky, if the footballer really had come to their house… the thought was too horrible to comprehend.

"No," Finn was saying. "He's really not… he can't see people now. I really don't think… From where?"

Another long pause, in which the other voice did a lot of talking. Whoever it was, they sounded agitated. Kurt strained his ears. It was no use. The voice was too far away, too quiet. And then, abruptly, the door closed again. Kurt stiffened, waiting for Finn's voice, but heard nothing. He tried to lift himself off the sofa to see, but the pain stopped him before he could even get close. And then footsteps started, two distinctive sets. Finn came back into sight at last, his face vaguely uncertain. He bent down to lower his voice.

"It's okay, calm down," he said in answer to Kurt's panicked stare. "Everything's fine. Do you know some guy called Blaine?"

Kurt's heart lurched and then stopped within a single dizzying moment. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, wondering if perhaps he had heard wrong. And Blaine chose that moment to appear from the hallway, his face carefully arranged into a relaxed smile that didn't quite hide the desperate anxiety that was flickering in his gaze, twitching at the corner of his mouth, lingering in the curve of his right eyebrow. He was dressed hastily in jeans and a t-shirt, his hair dishevelled and damp. Damp. _Oh my. _And those dark brown eyes were moving over Kurt's face, seeing the complete and utter mess he was in. Kurt sat bolt upright and then moaned and gripped his side as his mistake hit him for the second time. He struggled to breathe through the agony, horrified that he had made a sound like that in front of Blaine. Finn's hand landed on his back.

"Alright, you want him out?"

"No," Kurt spluttered. "No, no…"

"He said he got some kind of call."

_Call. Mobile. _Kurt swore silently as the memory of the phone call rushed back to him. Karofsky had called Blaine. Blaine had heard… some things. Just how much? Enough to make him come here. And it was a school night, he should be in Dalton… He wanted to ask Blaine all those things aloud but he couldn't make his voice work. The pain in his side was taking longer to fade.

"Kurt?"

_Blaine._

"How're you doing?"

He heard Blaine's footsteps, felt a light touch on his arm. His heart jolted again. The touch moved to his shoulder, pushed gently. Gritting his teeth, Kurt let it ease him back down again. He waited until he could bear to take a breath again, then cracked his eyes open. Blaine's face was near his own, just a few inches away. Close enough for Kurt to taste his breath.

"What're… you doing… here?" Kurt whispered.

Blaine shook his head, pushed his hair out of his face. "I just got kinda freaked out by that little prank call," he said, clearly trying to sound breezy. "Thought I'd drop by, make sure you were okay."

Kurt stared at him. Blaine hesitated, and then sighed and lifted his shoulders in a small shrug.

"I snuck out through the kitchens, okay? Wes and David said they'd cover for me if anyone asked. I mean, I tried calling but you didn't answer, so I just thought I should… check."

His mobile was still at the school somewhere, tossed wherever Karofsky had thrown it. And despite his bedraggled state, Kurt couldn't help but feeling a rush of giddiness at the idea of Blaine worrying over him, sneaking out of school for him, driving across the county to 'check' that he was all right… Was it wrong to feel just a little bit pleased about that? Probably. Blaine's eyes were roving over his face, his brow furrowing in a worried frown.

"No offense, but you're not looking so good."

Kurt tried to grin. "Neither are you... your hair's... complete mess..."

Blaine rolled his eyes, clawing his hand irritably through the dark, clumped spikes. "I was taking a shower when you called. Don't judge me." He met Kurt's gaze, refusing to smile. "I'm serious, Kurt. How much pain are you in?"

Kurt held his stare for a moment. And somehow, he didn't have to say a single word. Blaine gave a tiny, almost invisible nod and then glanced to his left, where Kurt assumed Finn had retreated to the side of the room. His eyebrow quirked meaningfully.

"How about we clean you up a bit, hmm?"

Kurt scowled. "Like I… told Finn," he said sourly, trying to sound in control of the situation, "I can… do it myself. I will. Just… in a bit."

"What about if I do it?"

Kurt was still processing this little suggestion and trying to break it down into something that made sense in reality when Blaine swivelled around on his heels, addressing Finn.

"You got a first aid kit? Anything?"

"Oh, right… yeah, I reckon we've got one…"

"I didn't agree," Kurt pointed out, trying to twist his head around to look for Finn. He could hear the other boy's footsteps moving towards the bathroom. "I can handle it–"

"Yeah, I can see that," Blaine said. He reached out and put a firm hand on Kurt's shoulder as he tried to wriggle upright, holding him down with embarrassing ease. "Why are you so against help? Don't you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Well, then."

Kurt opened his mouth, and then shut it again. His head was hurting too much to keep up this argument. And unlike Finn, Blaine seemed to be ready with a comeback no matter what Kurt threw at him. Kurt sighed, closed his eyes. Even the dim light of the lamp was beginning to make them ache. He couldn't help but feel that Finn and Blaine were ganging up on him. He would just have to sort himself out before they forced him off to the hospital as well… A sudden sting at his head made him wince and his had leapt up of its own accord, snatching hold of Blaine's wrist. He blinked his eyes open as Blaine pushed his hand down again gently. The first aid kit was here. How had that happened so fast? He hadn't even heard Finn bring it over. Blaine had a wad of something in his hand, and a bottle of antiseptic sat on the coffee table behind him, the culprit for the stinging in Kurt's head.

"Take it easy," Blaine was saying. He had already leant forwards again, pressing the wad against Kurt's temple again. Kurt hissed.

"It'll be over before you know it."

"Ow…"

"I know. Deep breaths."

Kurt couldn't take his eyes off him. The concentration on his face as he wiped carefully at the gash, the lightness of his touch… the stinging pulsed through him a few more times, and then slowly began to fade. Kurt could feel his eye-lids growing heavy once more, but he shook the tiredness off. He gazed up at Blaine's face, hovering just above his own, and thought about how ridiculously unlikely this whole situation was. Blaine leant out of sight, retrieved the towel, and began on the blood that had dried in Kurt's hair.

"Doing okay?" he murmured.

Kurt smiled at him, and was granted an answering smile which included a flash of those perfect teeth. He could feel some of the tension running out of him, the knot of fear finally beginning to loosen in the pit of his stomach. He was finally starting to relax… but he couldn't fall asleep now. Not with Blaine right next to him. He had to stay awake at least until he left. He watched hazily as Blaine found a pack of antiseptic wipes and began to clear the blood of his neck and cheek.

"S'like y'do this all th' time," he mumbled, hoping he hadn't slurred too much.

Blaine glanced at him briefly. "I've had my share of beatings," he said with a wry smile. "Never quite as bad as this, though."

"Oh…"

It had never occurred to him that Blaine might have experienced the very same thing himself. Perhaps that was why he seemed to know exactly what to do and say, why he acted so confidently. And why he could do it without causing much pain at all. In fact, Kurt could feel his limbs becoming leaden, could feel sleep dragging at him hopefully. He dug his nails into his palms in an attempt to keep himself alert. Blaine was touching his hair. Strange, as he'd already sorted that area. And his thumb was moving slowly back and forth across Kurt's forehead in a way that made that gathering darkness approach alarmingly fast.

And then Blaine was squeezing his arm, pulling him gently but firmly out of the doze he had unwittingly fallen into. Kurt squinted at him, trying to focus properly, trying to force his eyes to work properly. Blaine had moved to perch on the edge of the sofa beside him. Kurt could just about make out the blurred shape of Finn beside the coffee table, a small bundle in his hand.

"There you are," Blaine said, the corner of his mouth lifting encouragingly. "Took your time waking up there. You okay to get changed?"

_Changed? _Kurt felt himself wilt at the thought. He didn't want to move. In fact, he _couldn't _move. There was no way he was going to be able to get changed into anything, even if he had wanted to. But Blaine was asking… Kurt squeezed his eyes closed, tried to pull himself together. When he opened them again Blaine had the bundle and Finn had taken a step backwards.

"… you sure?" Finn was saying.

"Yeah, it's fine," Blaine replied, pulling the bundle apart. "We'll be done in, like, two minutes."

And then Finn was gone, and Blaine had put both hands on Kurt's shoulders and was pulling him up. Kurt stiffened, folding his arms tightly over his stomach, biting his lip as hard as he could to hold back the cry that trembled on his tongue. It hurt too much, and he was too exhausted to mask it now. He could feel tears creeping from his eyes again, felt a hot rush of humiliation travel down his back. But Blaine didn't even seem to notice. He shifted forwards, holding Kurt upright with one hand and easing his jacket off with the other.

"Okay, we'll just do this slowly. Hold on just a little longer, then you can go to sleep. That sound good?"

Kurt nodded blearily, then gasped harshly as Blaine began to help him out of his shirt, pressing against his side in the process. The other boy was close against him to keep him from falling backwards, his arms practically encircling him as he manipulated his arms out of the shirt. His hair smelt like cold air, like leaves. He drew back.

"There, now we just have to put your top on. Think you can put your arms up? Great, yeah, you're doing great…" He managed to get the top over Kurt's head and pulled it down. And then froze. "Oh, god… No, that's fine, okay… Kurt? How's your side?"

Kurt winced in response; Blaine was laying him down again, and his ribs were screaming in protest. He never wanted to move again in his life. Blaine prodded him insistently.

"Kurt, please try to listen. Do your ribs hurt?"

Kurt nodded sluggishly, opening his eyes again. Blaine had rolled his top up again and was staring at his injured side with a strange, twisted expression on his face. He glanced up, saw Kurt's gaze, and quickly smiled at him and smoothed his top down again.

"Okay. Let's just finish up, yeah?"

His voice sounded too bright. He shifted downwards, and Kurt felt hands touch his jeans…

Blind panic ripped through him and he lashed out automatically, catching Blaine on the shoulder with his knee. The other boy jerked backwards, hands raised as if Kurt had pulled a gun on him, a short laugh of surprise escaping his lips.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Didn't realise you were shy…" his voice trailed off as he took in Kurt's wide eyes, the shivers that had suddenly started to roll over him. His smile grin faded quickly. Kurt forced in a few breaths, tried to stop the shaking. It was only Blaine. Blaine would never do anything like… _that. _

"Kurt?"

Blaine's hand on his own. He snatched a tiny look at the other boy, still trying to calm himself. Blaine was searching for his gaze, any kind of smile gone completely from his face.

"Did anything else happen? Anything… bad?"

Kurt shook his head. "F-Finn… got there… before he could," he whispered.

Blaine nodded, eyes narrowed. He held Kurt's eye for a few moments longer, as if waiting for something. His grip tightened on Kurt's fingers and then released them. He turned away, reaching for the pyjama trousers again.

"C'mon, I promise I won't peek," he said, shooting him a smile.

Kurt gritted his teeth. _Just Blaine. _He nodded silently, letting his head fall back again. He tensed as Blaine reached for his jeans again, screwed his eyes shut tightly. Blaine left his boxers in place, stripping off his jeans quickly, and then helped him into the pyjamas. By the time Kurt looked up again he was done, and was reaching for something on the floor. He lifted it, shook it out, threw it over Kurt in one fluid motion. Kurt trailed his fingers over it dimly. His duvet… and then Blaine was back beside his head again, sliding a pillow underneath him.

"All done," he said, fixing Kurt with another of those smiles. "Finn and I will be right here if you need anything, okay?"

He was touching Kurt's hair again, brushing it off his forehead. And his magic worked again – Kurt felt himself falling away from them, and this time it didn't feel wrong or painful. This time it just felt… good. So he let go, forgetting his earlier pledge to stay awake, and with Blaine's breath beating softly on his face he sank into that soft and silent sea of sleep without a single care to hold him back.

* * *

He drifted in and out for a while. Most of the time when he grazed consciousness, everything was completely silent. Sometimes there were quiet voices. He caught snatches of conversations, little clips of Blaine's words, or Finn's.

"… all night… mind… make sure… know?"

"… terrible… Mr. Schue… back… Dad…"

_Dad. _That tugged at his attention. He wanted to demand to know just what about Dad, but his body wouldn't let him. The voices grew distant again. And then they were back, suddenly clearer, much closer. And he could have sworn he felt a cold hand on his side, but he couldn't open his eyes, so he couldn't be certain.

"… right there. We have to take him in first thing in the morning. That has to be serious."

"I wanted to take him straight away, but he wouldn't let me. He just has this way of making you do whatever he wants. He looks at you like… I knew I should've taken him as soon as we got back."

"He seems to be pretty persuasive."

The touch vanished, the duvet settled over him once more. The creak of the armchair reached his ears.

"What happened, then? You said you got a call. What call?"

A pause. "It wasn't Kurt. It was the other guy… Karofsky? Yeah. He said he had a message. And then I just heard…"

"What?"

"I don't know. I thought I was listening to the animal break his jaw. The guy was yelling stuff, and then Kurt was making these… these sounds…"

"God."

"Yeah. And then someone hung up. I tried calling back but I got nothing. I mean, I didn't know what to do. Call the police? Just wait? I couldn't think. I just had to make sure… I mean, the way it sounded… I didn't know what to expect."

"How'd you even know where we live?"

"We swapped addresses a while ago. For Christmas cards." Another pause, longer this time. "What happened? Seriously, how did this happen to him?"

"Man, I have no idea. He had a rough day. He vanished after Glee club. I didn't really worry until he didn't show up after school finished. I went home, but he wasn't there either. So I went back to look for him. I heard them in a classroom. When I got in there, I thought he was…" A shuffle. A sigh. "I've never seen so much blood in my life."

"They bleed a lot. Head wounds, I mean."

"I'll say. And Karofsky was standing over him like some… some monster. And he wasn't moving, and I couldn't see him breathing… I panicked."

"What'd Karofsky do when you got there?"

"He just ran. He looked scared. I would've followed, given him a taste of own medicine, but Kurt was… well, you know. But he woke up, and he wouldn't let me call for an ambulance. Said it would ruin his Dad's honeymoon."

"And you listened to him?"

"Like I said, he has a way with that kinda thing."

A huff. The armchair creaked again as someone shifted on it. The rustle as someone pushed their hands through their hair.

"What is that Karofsky guy's problem? I mean, if you hadn't got there…"

"I know."

"Police?"

"You think they'll help?"

"They have to do something." A sigh. "Well, first things first. We'll get him to the ER first thing tomorrow morning. Once he's been looked at we'll decide what to do about Karofsky."

"Kurt's gonna be pissed. He really didn't want to ruin his Dad's holiday."

"Well, I'll be pissed if he dies. So tough."

That last statement had come out a little more fierce than the rest, and Finn didn't answer. Kurt wanted to listen longer, but then found that he had already managed to forget what they had been talking about. And then he realized that he was half asleep anyway, and gave in.

They had mentioned the morning. He could worry about whatever they had been saying in the morning.

He drifted away again.

**Wow, LONG chapter! Hopefully made up for the longer wait there was on this one. Hope you enjoyed Blaine's entrance. Unexpected, but it felt right after the dreaded 'call'.**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**Thanks for the reviews.**

For a while now Kurt had been floating in that soft place between sleep and awake that whispered of the remains of dreams and unwanted thoughts for the day ahead. That place where he knew that soon he would have to get up, but still tried to deny the fact anyway. He was not necessarily comfortable – somewhere in the night he had rolled over and his head was pressed against something at an odd angle – but that didn't stop him from hanging grimly on to the blissful numbness that was beginning to slowly but surely slide away from him…

"Kurt? Kurt?"

Kurt screwed his eyes shut tighter. Five more minutes wouldn't hurt. Even though he had to allow at least half an hour to prepare an outfit for the day and fix his hair… make that forty five minutes, he'd forgotten that he hadn't laid any clothes out in preparation the night before…

"Hey. Kurt, come on. I know you can hear me."

He groaned, buried his face in his squashed pillow. His temple stung sharply and he winced, slammed into consciousness all too fast for his liking.

"Time to get up. Hey!"

A hand came down on his shoulder, squeezed him briefly. And it was around that point that Kurt realized that the person trying to wake him up was not Finn, as he had assumed, and that he was not in his bed, as he had also assumed. He opened his eyes, narrowed them in an attempt to see through the bright sunlight streaming in through the living room window. He was on the sofa. Which didn't make a lot of sense… And then Blaine came into sight, crouched beside him on the ground, hand rubbing his arm, and his stomach flipped over. And then he remembered.

And then wished he had forgotten.

He tried to sit up, froze with a wince as his ribs seared violently. Blaine reached out to help but he shook his head, took a deep breath, and then continued the movement more slowly. He just about managed it, teeth clenched tightly and his side burning hatefully by the time he had become vertical. He felt it with ginger fingers, hissing when he touched a particularly painful area.

"How're you feeling?"

He glanced back at Blaine, felt his mouth go a little dry at the sight of him. The other boy looked as if he hadn't slept all night. He was still in the clothes he had arrived in and a faint hint of stubble had appeared on his jaw. His eyes were tired and dull, but when he smiled Kurt's heart still managed to backflip in his chest.

"Fine," he replied, doing his best not to lose himself in those eyes.

Blaine's eyebrows twitched disbelievingly. Kurt changed the subject quickly.

"Did you stay here all night?"

Blaine grinned. "I couldn't risk missing out on our little field trip."

"Field trip?"

Kurt didn't like the secretive smugness that lingered in Blaine's face. He looked around, suddenly realizing that there had not been any kind of interjection from the gangly footballer that should be saying something inappropriate at this moment. Finn was nowhere to be seen. Blaine reached down and straightened with a pair of boots in one hand. He placed them on the floor in front of Kurt, then folded his arms.

"Where's Finn?" Kurt asked, dreading the answer.

"In the car, waiting. If we're not out in fifteen minutes, he's coming in."

"Oh, for Gaga's sake…"

"We can either do this the easy way, or the hard way. We are not afraid to use force if the necessity appears."

"I'm _not _going. I'm _fine."_

"I should also take this moment to point out that nothing you say or do will make any difference at all."

Kurt glared at him, unable to stop himself from pouting. Blaine's grin grew even wider. He nudged the boots forwards with his toe, reaching across to pick up one of Kurt's coats from the back of the sofa. He shook it impatiently.

"Quick, before the ER gets filled up."

Kurt stared at the coat, raking his brains for an excuse. But he was well aware of the fact that Blaine was nowhere near as easy to convince as Finn, that Blaine could not be fobbed off by wide eyes or any kind of desperate plea. He shut his eyes, sighing dramatically.

"I don't believe this."

"Tick, tock."

"Can I even get dressed?"

"We thought it'd be easier if you just came like that. Don't want to have you moving too much."

Kurt shot him a desperate look. "What about the bathroom?"

Blaine cocked his head thoughtfully. "Maybe. If you're fast."

Kurt pushed the duvet back sulkily, and then froze in horror. He looked down at himself, and then at Blaine. His voice was shrill when he spoke. "What… _What _am I wearing?"

The answer to that was – a pair of tracksuit trousers that had been a ghastly Christmas present one year from a distant relative and had been residing in the very bottom of his wardrobe ever since, and a football shirt that was several sizes too big for him. He plucked at it frantically, beseeching Blaine's stern face with pleading eyes.

"I can't go out in this!"

"Nobody you know will see you."

"You'll see me!"

"I've already seen you in it, though."

Kurt let out a wail and dropped his head into his hands. And then yelped and pressed a palm against the gash on his forehead, which he had managed to jab with two fingers. He was beaten. He was going to be forced out of the house in these ridiculous clothes whether he liked it or not. He pressed his fingers against his eyes instead, and then placed both hands on the arm of the sofa and levered himself to his feet. Blaine's arm snaked out to help – Kurt would have shaken him off if he could, but if he was honest he was certain he would have ended up on the floor if Blaine hadn't been beside him. He waited for the room to stop spinning. It did, surprisingly quickly.

"Ready?" Blaine said, lifting the coat again.

Kurt shot him an icy glare. "Bathroom," he snarled.

Blaine hesitated, but Kurt didn't give him the chance to argue. Holding his side tightly, he began to shuffle towards the bathroom. Blaine followed on his heels, one hand on his back. Which was problematic, because it was difficult to remain pissed at him when his touch still sent shivers down Kurt's spine. He had to move slowly – every step meant a jolt of pain running through his ribs like an electric shock. By the time they reached the bathroom his legs were shaking. He stepped inside, and then raised his eyebrows as Blaine tried to follow him in.

"You're not serious."

"You're not all that steady–"

Kurt gave him a look that could have stopped Madonna in her tracks. Blaine sighed, and then stepped back reluctantly.

"I'll be right outside. Just yell if you need me, okay?"

Kurt shut the door without answering. He limped over to the sink and, sucking up a deep breath in preparation, looked at himself in the mirror. He had to take hold of the sink for support to deal with the shock of it. He looked like an extra in a zombie film. The left side of his face was a mess of bruises – several blotched across his forehead and running down over his cheekbone in a disgustingly vibrant glare, reaching right back and over his ear. His cheek held a graze that stood out against the bruises. An ugly gash cut over his temple from hairline to eyebrow, glistening wetly with new blood where he had just poked it. The weight he was placing on his right wrist sent stabs of pain up his arm and he lifted it quickly before resuming his inspection. His nose was still flecked with dried blood, although mercifully the swelling that must have been evident the night before seemed to have gone down. On the right side of his jaw was another bruise, slightly less obvious. He ran his fingers over the mess, his face crumpling in despair. It appeared that he was going to be drawing many stares in the corridors for the next few days. And his wrist, from the feel of it, was almost certainly sprained. He sighed wearily.

There in the middle of it all, his lip was still split from the day before when it had all begun.

He brushed his teeth and splashed some cold water over his face. He ran his damp fingers through his hair, wrinkling his nose at the state of it. He found a comb in the cupboard and tried to tame it into a more presentable look, but when he tried to style the back he encountered a small lump on the back of his skull. Which he probably shouldn't touch too much. Instead, he pushed the comb into his pocket and looked at himself again. He still looked terrible; there would be no avoiding that for a while. His hand moved to his side, and he paused. He wasn't sure he wanted to know… he shook himself and pulled his top up. Violently purple and yellow bruising had blossomed over one side of his entire torso, reaching from his ribs to his stomach where it dissipated somewhere around his belly button. He felt the area gingerly, winced as he reached the bottom of his rib cage. Something there hurt. A lot. He could feel a small lump… he rolled his top down again.

Perhaps the hospital wasn't such a bad idea.

A knock at the door pulled at his attention, and he turned away from the mirror. He opened the door, forced a dull smile for Blaine. The other boy smiled back at him, lifting the coat.

"Ready?" he asked again, more gently this time.

Kurt's lip curled in distaste and he shook his head. "No, please, not that one." He looked past Blaine, pointed at the hooks by the door where the rest of the coats hung. "The blue one, over there."

Blaine laughed and collected the other coat, held it for Kurt as he struggled to manipulate his aching limbs into the sleeves.

"Should've known you'd never wear that with tracksuits."

"Well, Finn should've known I'd never wear tracksuits, period," Kurt muttered.

He leant heavily against the wall while Blaine grabbed his boots and knelt down in front of him, holding them out. Resenting having to be dressed like a child, Kurt sulkily stuck out one foot and allowed Blaine to put them on for him.

"There," Blaine said proudly, straightening and looking him up and down. "You look fine, as always."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I look like a train wreck. Let's just get it over with."

Blaine grinned and moved away to open the front door. Kurt took a moment to prepare himself before following slowly. It hurt to move. It hurt to think. He was certainly feeling much better than the night before, but even now he felt exhausted after the tiny journey to the bathroom and back. His knees were trembling traitorously and his head was beginning to throb earnestly. And he was feeling just a little bit sick. He made it to the door and paused again, taking a few deep breaths, closing his eyes. He felt Blaine's arm slide around his waist.

"Car's right here."

He nodded blindly, swallowing back nausea. He held on to the doorframe with his good hand, his other wrapped around his ribs, his eyes squeezed shut. The ground was beginning to tilt slowly beneath him. _Oh, god…_

"Kurt?"

He lifted a finger, signalling for Blaine to wait. He pressed his forehead against the doorframe, trying to ground himself again. If he took one more step, he was sure he was either going to throw up or fall into the bottomless pit that was yawning in his head once more.

"Kurt, I'm right here. You'll be fine. I'm right next to you."

Blaine's words were in his ear. He swallowed hard. Then he nodded. Without warning, Blaine pulled one of his arms across his shoulders and began to walk. Kurt staggered unsteadily along with him. And, amazingly, he didn't fall. Blaine was there to keep him up. He didn't open his eyes until they reached the car. He didn't need to - Blaine was acting as his eyes, ears and legs. He held his breath as he lurched ungracefully up into the car and dropped heavily into the back seat, clinging to his ribs, teeth clenched so tightly he thought his jaw might break. Blaine followed, sliding in beside him and slamming the door. Kurt lifted his head to find Finn twisting around to look at him.

"Hi, Kurt," he said brightly. "Ready to see the doctor?"

Kurt glowered at him. He gestured to the tracksuit bottoms, the top. "We will speak of _this, _and _this, _later," he growled. "And the consequences that will ensue if you commit such atrocities again, especially when I am unable to argue."

Finn rolled his eyes and slid the car into gear, backed out of the drive. Kurt winced as they bounced off the curb.

"Pray forgive me, your highness, but the latest fashionable trend in pyjamas wasn't exactly top of my list last night."

"Fashion should always be at the top of everyone's lists."

Finn snorted, but left the subject alone. Kurt leant back gingerly as the car roared around a corner, heading for town. He caught sight of his reflection in the rear view mirror and groaned dramatically.

"What if we see... _people?"_

"Oh, god forbid that we should encounter such monsters!" Finn cried sarcastically. "Why, they shall pelt you to death with copies of Vogue at the sight of such ancient, non-chic clothing as tracksuits..."

Blaine put a hand on Kurt's arm as he opened his mouth furiously to retaliate. Kurt sighed heavily and shrugged him off, scooted slowly across to lean against the window. The streets slipped past them, signs for the hospital beginning to spring up, pointing towards his doom. He couldn't help but notice that Blaine was accompanying him to the hospital when he could - should - be returning to Dalton. Surely he would be in trouble for sneaking out of the school for so long. Just how well could Wed and David cover for him? Kurt sneaked a glance at him. He had never liked the whole unshaven look, but on Blaine it somehow looked rather... rugged. He felt a blush creeping up his neck and quickly focused on the pavement. This was hardly the time to be having thoughts like that...

_He cared enough to sneak out of school and come to your house... he cared enough to help you last night..._

A sudden, unwanted thought leapt into his head and he let out a muffled exclamation, glanced sharply at Blaine. The other boy blinked at him, raising both eyebrows.

"What's wrong? You okay?"

Kurt stared at him, then wet his lips. "Did you... last night..."

"What?"

"Did you... _change _me?"

Blaine's smirk confirmed his terror. Kurt buried his face in his hands as Finn sniggered under his breath in the driver's seat. The sheer humiliation that Blaine had undressed him, had to wrestle him out of his clothes in the disorientated state he had been in the night before.

"Speaking of... nice underwear," Blaine muttered under his breath.

The blush surged back and Kurt covered his face again, pretending to be deaf to Blaine's chuckle. Oh, the horror...

"We're here."

Kurt raised his burning face in time to see the sign for the Emergency Room move past his window. Finn parked near to the doors and Kurt sighed heavily, preparing himself for a good few hours of waiting under the watchful gazes of Blaine and Finn. Finn helped him out of the car, but he pushed away the boys' helpful hands as they neared the doors. He would walk in alone. All the same, Blaine and Finn fell in beside him like bodyguards, flanking him closely as he limped towards the automatic doors of the ER. The sight he beheld as the doors opened wide made his heart sink. It was barely midday, and yet the ER was already filled with a wide assortment of ailments and wounds. Finn ducked ahead of him to talk to the nurse at reception, and Blaine moved closer to his left.

"There are seats over there," he said, pointing.

Kurt rolled his eyes. It was apparent that they would be waiting for quite some time.

**So, they finally got him into a hospital :) Hope you enjoyed. Bit of a slow chapter compared with the rest, but this story is starting to wind down...**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or the awesome character of Kurt :(**

**Soooo this will be Blaine's last appearance in this particular fic. He reminds me of chocolate mousse - very nice in small amounts, but a little sickening after you've swallowed down too much. Don't get me wrong, nothing against him, he was hilarious in A Very Potter Musiucal... just need a few more episodes on him to get a clear picture of what's going on in his head.**

**Also, I'm not that familiar with American ERs. If there are any mistakes, please do forgive me.**

**Thanks for the reviews.**

Doctor Anston was tall, lanky, and wearing a bright orange tie that Kurt couldn't stop looking at. It wasn't a faded orange, or a pastel orange, or any other kind of acceptable orange. Instead, it was an eye-scarring _neon _orange. The kind of orange that should be worn with a warning sign in case of permanent damage to unsuspecting fashionistas that may be innocently passing by... Admittedly, aside from the tie, Doctor Anston was a very pleasant man who smiled encouragingly and seemed to know just what to say to create an air of calm.

Kurt was certain that he would like the man a lot more if he was not currently pressing Kurt's side with gently probing fingertips that felt like red hot pokers.

Kurt lay on his side on the cold examining table, his lip caught between his teeth in an attempt to silence the whimpers that were jerking out of him with every touch. He gripped the edge of the table tightly, knuckles white, eyes squeezed shut.

"Okay..."

He resisted the urge to snap at the man who was sending bolts of fire through his chest and stomach. He stopped himself from telling the butcher to hurry the hell up before he puked or screamed or cried, or perhaps tried to do all three at the same time. Maybe if he threw up all over that pristine white coat the Doctor would stop poking him.

"Okay, and breathe in."

Kurt dug his nails into the table, forced in a shallow breath. Doctor Anston's palm lay flat against his ribs on the bruised side, applying a minuscule amount of pressure that somehow managed to make Kurt's eyes tear up.

"Little more..."

Kurt sucked in a little more air, managed to fill his lungs. A moan escaped his composure, and Doctor Anston finally removed his hands.

"Thank you, that was just fine. Can you sit up for me?"

Kurt waited for his side to stop searing, and then slowly pushed himself upright, hunched over, arm wrapped around his injured side. Doctor Anston sat down beside him, scribbling something down on his chart.

"Well, Kurt, you're a little roughed up to put it mildly. The good news is that I don't think your ribs are broken, but at least one of them is cracked, and their all bruised on your right side. That's going to cause you a lot of pain for a while. And the bad news..."

"That wasn't the bad news?" Kurt mumbled.

"... is that there's nothing you can do but wait for them to heal," the Doctor continued, smiling. "None of them are displaced, so you can just heal naturally."

"How long will that take?"

"Perhaps six to eight weeks."

Kurt gaped at him. "Six to eight weeks? _Weeks?"_

"I'm afraid so. What we can do is prescribe you some painkillers to make it a little easier. But you'll have to rest - no heavy exercise for at least a month."

"Are you serious?"

The Doctor nodded. Kurt closed his eyes in despair. A whole month. God, and sectionals were rushing up on them so soon... he was going to end up moving stiffly from foot to foot in the background. No more dance choreography. What if Mr. Schue cut him from Glee completely because he couldn't keep up? If he couldn't take deep enough breaths, he was never going to be able to hit the high notes... Doctor Ansten gestured to his head with his pen.

"As for the rest, you've had a serious concussion. Which isn't really surprising considering all the trauma to your head. You said you felt dizzy, sick, tired, had a headache, that right?"

Kurt nodded dejectedly. Doctor Ansten smiled at him sympathetically.

"Well, those symptoms should fade, all you have to do is take it easy for a while. Which means bed rest and no unnecessary stress or exertions..."

He nodded, unable to stop himself from pouting sulkily. The Doctor was hesitating. Kurt looked at him, arching one eyebrow.

"There's more, right?"

Doctor Ansten put down his chart, straightened his vibrant orange tie. He was frowning, a sure sign that the 'more' that he had to say was not going to be something Kurt was going to be over the moon about.

"I'm concerned about the amount of damage done to your head, Kurt. Sometimes concussions like these can become more complicated if the brain tissue is affected, if the brain swells."

Kurt blinked at him. He wasn't sure what to say, how to reply. The Doctor seemed to be talking about something that was far more serious than anything he had considered could be possible from a beating. He was talking about...Kurt wet his lips anxiously, trying to process this information without thinking _that _word.

"What... what exactly... does that do?" he managed, his voice suddenly thinner than he would like it to be.

"It could cause a serious head injury, possibly even brain damage."

Kurt stared at the floor. There were no tears in his eyes, no fear bubbling up in his throat, just a strange numbness that had spread through him like a virus and taken over. He could see his hands shaking. He heard his own voice say something which sounded like 'okay.'

"I'd like you to come back in for a check up in about a week or so. It's just a precaution - I've seen people walk away from much worse - but we wouldn't want anything critical to come out of this. If you're experiencing symptoms at that stage, we'll take you for a scan just to be sure. In the meantime if you feel off, things like headaches, dizziness, maybe mood swings or you find it hard to remember things, anything like that, you must give me a call at once. I'm going to write my number down for you. Even if it feels like nothing, any little concerns, it's better be on the safe side..."

Kurt took the prescription and the scrap of paper with the Doctor's number. They crumpled in his fingers. Doctor Ansten's words were fading away. Kurt took a deep breath, and then reached for his top and began to struggle back into it, carefully avoiding the bruises on his face. The Doctor had put a couple of butterfly stitches into the wound on his temple, and they tugged a little when he moved his eyebrow or frowned too hard. The Doctor was still talking. Kurt forced himself to listen, pick the words apart and turn them into a meaning.

"... of course, it's your decision to involve the police or not, but I'm sure you'd have an adequate claim against whoever is responsible for this."

He nodded. The Doctor stood, tucking the chart under his arm. He was watching Kurt with narrowed eyes, as if seeing the blankness that had swamped his patient's mind.

"Do you have any questions?"

Kurt shook his head.

"And it is essential that you notify your parent or guardian. Is there somebody here with you?"

"My Dad's on his honeymoon. I've got my brother."

Again, a pause. Kurt avoided the Doctor's gaze quickly, focusing instead on pulling his shirt straight.

"And how old is your brother?"

"Eighteen."

He mumbled the word. Finn could definitely pass for eighteen, as long as nobody asked any questions... particularly to Finn himself. But the Doctor made no challenge, and Kurt relaxed. He could keep the authorities out of his hair just a little longer.

"So long as you have an adult with you. I would suggest you contact your father as soon as possible."

Kurt nodded again. His tongue felt too big for his mouth. The Doctor said something else. And then he was gone. Kurt reached for his coat and pulled it on gingerly, gasping as his side prickled with pain, then eased himself down from the examination table. He didn't know what to think. He found himself reaching into his pocket, taking hold of the comb that was still stowed away there. He turned it over, catching sight of himself in the dark window to his side. His hair had been ruined in the removal of his top. He stared at it, and then slowly began to comb it back into place.

Image was everything. Keep up the image.

Finn and Blaine were waiting for him beyond the curtain that sectioned off patients. The two of them leapt up from their chairs almost simultaneously. Their desperation was understandable - they had been waiting for around two hours before someone had managed to get round to see them, and then they'd had the tension of waiting for news from Kurt. Who had a smile pasted over his face ready for them as he limped out of the cubicle.

"The wounded soldier returns," Blaine announced, reaching out to take Kurt's arm supportively.

"How was it?" Finn asked, looking him up and down as if searching for a visible label explaining the Doctor's diagnosis.

Kurt had already hidden Ansten's number in his back pocket. He passed the prescription note to Finn, rolling his eyes as he did so.

"Exactly as I thought it would be - he told me to go home and rest, and gave me some painkillers." He looked at Finn pointedly. "That's it."

"What about your ribs?" Blaine persisted. "I mean, last night, they looked... painful."

"He said they might be cracked, but that there's nothing he can do about it. He said it'd be fine in a few weeks."

Blaine glanced at him. Something flickered in his eyes, and Kurt quickly moved his attention to pulling his coat straight. Finn was already steering them towards the door, clearly relieved that Kurt wasn't about to drop dead. Bruised ribs were probably nothing new to him - footballers must get them all the time. But Blaine hung back, pulling at Kurt's arm.

"You sure there's nothing else?"

Kurt smiled at him, terrified. "Nope. Nothing else."

Blaine was still looking at him. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He shrugged. "Well, that's great."

Kurt nodded, hating the façade every second. He smile felt so fake that he imagined that if he wiped his hand across his face it would come straight off onto his palm, like some cheap sticker. And Blaine knew that there was something up, something off key. Kurt could see it in the way the other boy's eyes skated over him curiously, the way his frown lingered across his face. Kurt turned away quickly, only glad that Finn was eager to get out of the ER at last and that Blaine would therefore have no choice but to drop the issue.

By the time they had finally fought their way out into the car park, Finn juggling prescriptions and insurance cards alike, Kurt was feeling tired again. Bone tired. The kind of weariness that crept up in secret and then suddenly took hold of every limb in a merciless, leaden grip. All he wanted was to go home and sleep for a week. Or a month. Or maybe a year. He was so focused on remaining upright on his own, blinking the exhaustion away, that he almost didn't hear Blaine saying his goodbyes to Finn. It was only when Blaine turned to him that he realized something was happening.

"Whuh?" he managed thickly, shaking himself.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said, reaching out to squeeze his arm. "David called while you were getting checked out. They've noticed I'm gone at Dalton."

"How're you getting back?"

"Bus stop just round the corner." Blaine stabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Long ride, but it'll give me the chance to come up with an excuse. I'm hoping 'family emergency' will do it."

Kurt nodded. Of course. He should have known that Blaine wouldn't be able to stay with him for long. He hauled the smile back onto his face, tried to make it look real. "Oh, okay. Thanks for everything, for coming down and... you know... helping out. I owe you one."

Blaine grinned. "You don't owe me anything. Just promise me you'll do something about this wack-job Karofsky guy. I don't wanna have to come down here to drag you to the hospital again."

His voice was light and teasing, but his eyes were anything but. Kurt couldn't hold his gaze when he agreed. If Blaine had any idea what he was planning, he'd be furious. Or upset. Or most likely both. Either way, Kurt couldn't take the look that would surely cross his face. Blaine's hand was still on his arm, his touch a welcome pressure. Kurt could feel his smile wearing thin. He took a deep breath, and then severed the contact, pushing Blaine's hand down as naturally as he could.

"We should meet up," he said, his voice falsely bright. "Sometime soon."

Blaine nodded, lifted his hand in a wave to Finn. And then he had turned around and walking towards the front of the hospital, vanishing out of Kurt's life alarmingly fast... Kurt's heart leapt into his mouth. Blaine was the only one who might understand how scared he was, who might appreciate the desperation he felt to hide that horrible diagnosis from everyone around him. If he let that one person go now, things could get bad. If he couldn't handle it himself...

He heard himself speak, the word jumping from his mouth before he could reign it in. "Blaine?"

Blaine stopped, turned. He waited, hands in his pockets, his shirt rippling and billowing in the wind. Like something out of a dream rather than a real person. Someone who Kurt couldn't bear to taint with something like this. He was like some celestial guardian angel, who kept dropping in and out of Kurt's life whenever he was most needed, but vanishing afterwards all the same with no real assurance that what they had was real. And there was a reason that Kurt didn't believe in angels or greater beings.

_Just say it._

"Yeah?"

Kurt stared at him. "Just… I'll text you," he finished lamely, forcing a smile.

Blaine chuckled, waved. "I'll be waiting."

And Kurt watched him walk away, knowing that he had just made a decision. He had just decided not to tell anyone. Anyone. He had just decided what he was going to do over the next few weeks.

He sat in the front with Finn on the way back, his forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window. He had the vague memory of being in a similar position the night before, only then he had also known the hot wetness of blood between his head and the glass. He could feel his eyes growing heavy, but he hauled them open once more and turned his head towards Finn. There was something else he needed to sort out first. There were certain people in his life who he knew he would open up to if he wasn't careful. There were people who could tell when he was lying, and knew how to lull him into that sense of security which would have him telling them everything. And if he wanted to keep this a secret, he was going to have to stay away from those people for as much time as possible.

"So. Dad."

Finn shot him a wary glare. "We're calling him as soon as we get in."

"No, we're not."

Finn groaned and slammed a hand down on the steering wheel. "Kurt, come on. You have to tell Burt. How are you planning to hide this from him? And _why? _Do you want Karofsky to carry on doing this to you?"

"I'm not going to hide it," Kurt said quietly. "But I want it to wait until he gets home."

"No."

"It won't do any harm."

"Kurt, for god's sake–"

"Finn!" Kurt looked at him sharply, pulling as much emotion as he could into his gaze. "This is my decision. I'm not saying I'll let Karofsky get away with it, I just don't want to be making rash decisions right now. I need some time to think everything over–"

"Think _what _over? He pulverised you, there's not much else to it!"

"–and decide what I want to do next."

"Why are you being like this?" Finn demanded, wrenching the car around a corner slightly more roughly than necessary. Kurt bit his tongue as his bruised side bumped against the door.

"I just need a little time," he muttered. "I can't deal with it all now."

"You do realize Burt's gonna be pissed at you when he gets back?"

Kurt shrugged, shaking his head dryly. "Most of the bruises will clear up in a week or so. By the time he gets back, it won't be as bad."

Finn sat still, shocked into silence for once. Kurt waited for him to speak again. He knew that what he was suggesting was a lot to ask, but he needed Finn to keep his secret. Because if his Dad found out that he had been taken to the ER with cracked ribs and a serious concussion, he would know that there would be a chance of brain damage, and then everything would fall apart… he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let _that thing _happen to him, not in his life, not in his head. He couldn't risk someone bringing it up.

"You can't be serious about this, Kurt," Finn was muttering. "If you won't tell him, I will."

"We'll tell him that Karofsky attacked me," Kurt said. "We'll tell him that we want to take the matter to the principal, get him expelled. But we won't tell him that I've been to the ER, or about anything... that he can't see."

"No, I won't–"

"Because if he does find out," Kurt interrupted, "He'll get stressed. He'll get angry. Like in school, when he got mad at Karofsky. And I don't think his heart is strong enough to deal with something like this."

It was a low blow, but it was his only sure-fire shot at getting Finn to keep his mouth shut. Dragging his father's health into the equation worked wonders on a boy whose father was already dead. The statement shut Finn up until they got back. Kurt could almost hear the wheels turning in his step-brothers' head; he let him mull the issue over quietly. Finn wasn't the brightest of students. If Kurt pulled the right strings, he just might be able to pull this off… Finn pulled into their drive and shut off the engine, sat motionless for a while. Then he looked at Kurt, clearly torn.

"We'll still deal with Karofsky when he gets back?"

Kurt held his gaze. "Yes."

"We'll still tell him what happened, just with a few less details. Because of his condition."

"Exactly."

Finn wiped a hand over his face, shaking his head slowly. "I really don't like this."

"It's for the best." Kurt shoved open the door, satisfied. Finn was caving. He shuffled out of the car, moving slowly, keep one arm around his side to protect it from any kind of fall. He shut the door, leant back against the car. His eyes were stinging. He needed to sleep. He pushed himself upright, headed towards the house. Finn caught up with him, his face twisted with uncertainty.

"It's only one week," Kurt murmured as they reached the front door. "The Doctor said I should stay home and rest anyway, so I won't even be near Karofsky."

Finn stared at the door handle. And then, suddenly, he gave a single, short nod and shoved the front door open, gesturing for Kurt to go first.

"Fine. But as soon as he get's back..."

"We'll talk to him about Karofsky," Kurt finished, nodding. "I swear."

He caught Finn's eye, smiled. Then he turned and limped slowly towards the basement, snatching up the corner of his duvet and his pillow from the sofa as he went. He didn't care that they trailed on the ground as he made his way down the stairs, one step at a time, leaning heavily on the banister for support. The basement was dark and cool, and he felt able to breathe for the first time in a while. He moved gingerly over to his bed and sat down. Above, he could hear Finn moving around in the kitchen. He listened for a while, waiting for the dull roar of the television to come on. Only then did he haul the duvet up over himself and slump down onto his back, to weary to bother changing. He was asleep within seconds, every part of his body aching with exhaustion.

And in that moment before he closed his eyes, Doctor Ansten's number crackled in his back pocket.

**So, goodbye to Blaine, hello to Kurt making stupid, proud decisions, and a little promise of a certain bullying footballer coming up in the next chapter, because he's been absent far too long...**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kurt's gorgeous little smile, or Glee. Probably for the best.**

**Thanks for the reviews.**

Finn's soft snores had never been so loud, and the basement had never been quite so stuffy and inhospitable as it felt at this moment.

In the bleak darkness Kurt could only just make out the pale ceiling above him. He had no choice these days but to lie on his back - if he lay on one side his ribs roared with agony, if he lay on the other he risked pressing his wounded temple against his pillow that suddenly became horribly hard - which offered him little else to look at but the white panels and plain light shade. It didn't really matter most of the time, apart from those rare occasions when sleep simply would not come and he found himself gazing into space with nothing to occupy his thoughts but random noises in the distance. Or, in this case, Finn's breathing. Of course, Kurt knew exactly what to blame for his current predicament.

The painkillers were incredibly effective at removing any and all aches and twinges in Kurt's body. What they were also very good at doing was making Kurt drop off within minutes, no matter what time it was. As a result, while Finn spent the day at school collecting Kurt's homework and answering worried enquiries, Kurt either lay in bed and slept, or occasionally mustered the will to drag himself upstairs and stare at the television in a drug-induced haze. Finn had been asking if the caretakers had found Kurt's mobile anywhere, but so far there had been no news. Finn did have other news however - the school was going wild with the gossip of the class who had arrived at history period one the day after the Karofsky incident and discovered a floor covered with smears of dried blood and desks overturned. Not only that, but Karofsky had not been seen at school since. Of course, the Glee club were going mad with worry and were begging to come and visit him, Mercedes in particular badgering Finn all day every day to let her come home with him. Kurt had made a point of having no visitors during his week off, and so he constantly spent his evenings listening to Finn repeat tired 'get well soon' messages. All this Kurt heard with deaf ears while Finn put plates of microwaved meals in front of him in the evenings. It was the only meal Kurt ate now, the only one had had the energy to drag himself up to the table to satisfy Finn's nagging. So, since his daily habitat had shrunk to his bed, the sofa, and the kitchen table, it wasn't surprising that after four days of little else Kurt couldn't sleep.

And after two hours of lying on his back and hoping against hope that he could somehow force himself to sleep, Kurt gave in and sat up slowly. He was only allowed so many pills a day, so despite the fact that his ribs were slowly beginning to ache again, there was nothing he could do about it. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood up, made his way to the stairs. He moved quietly, one hand on the banister and the other on the wall. It still took him about ten minutes to get from the bottom of the stairs to the top. He had to take each step as an individual mountain - one foot up, move weight. Other foot joined the first. One stair done. Next step. And so on. He managed to make it to the top on this occasion without making a sound and avoiding creaks. He slipped out and made his way into the kitchen. In the darkness, the cool moon sent strips of light across the tiled floor in majestic pools of silver, which Kurt took a small flash of pleasure in disturbing with his own shadow. The house watched him silently as he poured himself a glass of water and leant back against the counters, fingering his side absently.

He regretted not being able to see Mercedes. He wanted to see her. He wanted to see all of them, if he was honest with himself. He wanted to go back and sing with them, dance across the auditorium stage, fill the air with wild, pulsating music. But the problem remained that if he did see Mercedes, he was sure she would notice that one thought preying on his mind like a leech, pulling him away from ordinary conversations. She would be able to make him tell her what was wrong. And then it would be out.

_Brain damage. _Those two words sounded so final, so dead. They came accompanied with horrible images of shrivelled bodies in hospital beds, reduced to drooling vegetables, lost in their own heads, wasting years away as their brains slowly melted away... The simple truth was that he was scared. He couldn't let himself accept that something like that might happen to him. He wanted his future, that glorious road stretching out before him, filled with possibilities. And of course he couldn't tell anyone of the chance that the swollen organ in his own head was going to destroy him from the inside out. Because if he told his friends, everything he was would vanish. He was an ice queen, he was confident and flamboyant and just a tad egotistical, and those qualities were what kept him afloat. If those walls fell down, his whole life would fall apart. They would all see him for what he was - a weak, vulnerable child, terrified of the monsters lurking in the darkness around him, flinching at the sound of a locker clanging shut, closing his eyes to the sight of a fist coming for his face, or that belt buckle...

He wanted to tell his father. He wanted his Dad to come home and fight off all the horror that had been crammed into his life in the last few days... but that was selfish. Burt Hummel had been fighting for his son for most of Kurt's sorry life. They were supposed to be a happy family now, after the wedding and everything. All their problems were supposed to vanish into the air after that kiss at the alter. And yet still Karofsky haunted him physically and mentally, still fate drove him into complications and hardships. Kurt was going to make this family right no matter what the cost, he was going to return them all to normality if it killed him.

That thought made his throat dry up.

He gulped down the rest of his water hastily, placed the glass down. He stood motionless for a few seconds, breathing, feeling the tug on his ribs and the pain in his stomach. Keep composure. When he returned to school, nobody would know that anything was wrong. He was Kurt Hummel. And if he believed that nothing more would go wrong with him, then nothing more would happen to him. If he wanted it enough, it would be. The concrete image he hid behind every day - the hair, the clothes, the smirk - none of it would sustain even one crack. And once again it would save him, as it had saved him thousands of times before.

_But what if..._

He shook himself, placed his empty glass in the sink.

It happened in the blink of an eye - one moment looking the other way, and he would have missed it completely. It was a dark shadow, one that slid past the kitchen window and blocked out the bright moonlight and then vanished within the same moment. Kurt's fingers hadn't even left the glass; he whipped around so fast that the glass tumbled over and clanged loudly on the tin sink. He barely heard it, clinging to the counter with vice-like fingers, terror pulsing through his blood. A clatter from somewhere further to the side of the house reached his ears and he flinched violently, throwing himself backwards into the corner of the kitchen. His ribs seared but he ignored them, his lungs tight with fear, his heart pumping, his skin prickling... Somebody was outside. Somebody was lurking outside his house, tormenting him, watching him. And he was cowering in the shadows like a five-year-old child, waiting for Daddy to hear his cries and come and save him from the monsters in the dark. He was just as pathetic and useless as all those footballers had always said.

And god, he was so tired of being a victim. He was so tired of sitting back and watching every horrible thing possible happening to him.

Before he knew what was happening, he had crossed the kitchen to the front door, dragged it open, and stormed out into the darkness.

He stood there in the blackness, his Armani pyjamas stirring around him in the whispering breaths of the wind, felt goosebumps rising on his skin. He felt the cool air against his prickling skin, heard his own sharp pants roaring through the night. It was the kind of night that seemed to breathe, the kind of night that was nothing but silence and darkness and yet everything more than humanity at the same time. No stars glimmered above him, no music thumped in the distance, nothing. He filled his lungs with the emptiness around him, not caring when his ribs punished him. There was nobody here, nobody watching him. Here he was, alone outside his safety net, his sanctuary, and the world was still turning.

He wondered if this was what Doctor Ansten had meant by 'symptoms of brain swelling', although he couldn't remember paranoia coming up high on the list that had spilled from that orange-tie-wearing man. Perhaps this was how it started. Perhaps he was going to end up hallucinating, turning corners to see an evil version of himself or maybe Lady Gaga jabbing at him with a red hot poker... it could only be a poker... Kurt pushed both hands over his face and through his hair, forcing a heavy sigh in and out of his body. Then he began to move again.

He stepped off the driveway and onto the dew-damp grass, curling his bare feet into the coolness. He walked slowly, curling one arm around his side in an attempt to ease the growing pain in his ribs. He hadn't moved this far for days, hadn't even stepped outside the house since Finn and Blaine had dragged him off to the hospital. It felt surprisingly good to be outside again. His skin had been showing signs of his imprisonment. It was about time he started to crawl out of his safe little bird cage. It was, of course, his own doing, his own fault that he had pushed himself into a dark bedroom where no friends or visitors were permitted to enter. And he planned to remain in such circumstances a little longer. But that didn't mean that he didn't miss the others. That didn't mean he didn't long to go back to Glee club and feel all those other voices all around him...

He felt like his mind was going round and round in circles. He had reached their tiny back yard, overshadowed by their tall fence and the dark lumbering form of the house. The moonlight seemed dimmer here, masked by weeds and leaves. He could only just make out the rusted frame of the small swing on which he had spent most of his childhood. The tiny plastic chairs and tables had long since been sold on, but the swing had remained. Kurt made his way over to it and sat slowly, hissing with pain when his side sparked with pain. He leant against the squealing chains, relieved to sit again. It was impossible to understand how the simple task of walking into his back garden had become so hard that he was out of breath by the time he got there. He was finally beginning to feel tired. His eyes were aching and his head was beginning to pound. He wanted to sleep.

The swing was swathed with familiarity and memories. Like when he used to try to stand on the plastic seat as it swung, usually resulting in a nasty and ungraceful fall that had since led him to generally avoid most sports. Or summer days when his Dad would be tolerant enough to turn the radio up loud enough for Kurt to hear it as he swung, and he would sing along with swing and jazz that had ceased to be mainstream decades ago. Or that one, particularly special memory in which slender, pale hands held him by the hips and pushed him gently, a musical laugh close to his ear, soft hair tumbling down to graze the corners of his vision. Lips would press against his head before those arms scooped him up, held him high, flashing blue eyes so similar to his own dancing in the sunlight. And he would be laughing too, as if he couldn't imagine anything other than this moment, as if he would always be as happy as this...

He could feel the cold wetness of tears on his cheeks. He wiped at them slowly, blinking, pushing his hair back. He was tired. His feet felt like ice. And he didn't want to think about this any more. Because if he continued thinking about her, he would end up thinking about how he wasn't sure she'd be all that proud of the small, passive, victimised boy he had turned in to. One hand on a chain, he heaved himself up to his feet and began his slow, unsteady journey back towards the house.

He was only a few feet away from the living room window when he heard the footsteps behind him. And for the first second or so he told himself that it was just his imagination, that nothing was really wrong. All in his head. Only then the hand clamped down on his shoulder, span him around, and hurled him back against the house. He heard himself cry out as his ribs blazed with agony, felt a sudden rush of vertigo. If that meaty fist hadn't still been clenched in his collar, he was certain that his trembling legs would have given out beneath him and he would have ended up on the floor. He wanted to pretend that it was all a nightmare, that in reality he was simply in bed and drifting off to sleep. But that hot breath was on his face and that fist was on his shoulder and those hunched, hulking shoulders were towering over him...

"K-Karofsky," he breathed, panic bolting through his stomach like lightning.

"Hey, Lady." The voice was simmering with rage, trembling with emotions so raw and animal that they made the hair on the back of Kurt's neck stand on end. Bloodshot eyes glared into his own. "We need to talk."

**Yep, cliffhanger...**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kurt's gorgeous little smile, or Glee. Probably for the best.**

**Thanks for the reviews. Even though many of them seemed to be submitted in order to threaten me with physical injury unless I updated soon XD Sorry about the cliffhanger. I almost expected to wake up to a crowd of angry Kurt-fans beating down my door with flaming torches and pitch forks...**

**This chapter was hard to write. Karofsky's difficult, because he seems to think one thing, get scared, and lash out before he can finish the thought. Hmmm...**

**Warning: includes strong language.**

Karofsky's fist had clenched tightly in Kurt's Armani pyjama shirt, so tightly in fact that the pressure was beginning to choke him. Kurt clawed at his fingers with shaking hands, the horrible grip at his throat made even worse by the way his knees were buckling. He shut his eyes, but he could still feel Karofsky's blazing eyes boring into him like twin lasers. It was the kind of situation that had haunted his nightmares over the past few days, and even so all he could think was how stupid - how ridiculously _stupid - _he had been to even imagine that anything in his life could ever go right. How insane he must be to think of his own home as somewhere safe, as somewhere people couldn't get to him. What possible difference did the fact that this was 'home' make to people like Karofsky? The footballer pulled him close, and then slammed him back hard against the house again. His side exploded with agony and he heard himself let out a hoarse, short scream. Karofsky was talking, but Kurt couldn't see through the pain, couldn't hear him over the thunder of his heart beat. The footballer shoved him again, and something inside him snapped.

Before he knew what was happening, he had summoned the little strength he had and jerked his knee up and out, his leg connecting with something soft. He dimly heard Karofsky cry out, but all he was really aware of was the fact that the grip had vanished from his throat. He slid down the wall to the ground, both arms wrapped tightly around his chest, struggling to push breaths into his shrivelled lungs in between the heavy sobs that were tearing through him. He kept his eyes shut, fighting down the sick feeling in his stomach, trying to think while his skull throbbed violently... He became vaguely aware of Karofsky swearing somewhere nearby.

"... that? How _dare _you, what the hell are you doing, you little shit? Don't you ever touch me again!"

The garden swam into sight before him. Karofsky had whirled away from him, doubled over. Kurt had managed to drive his knee into the footballer's stomach. He wanted to get up and make a run for it while Karofsky threw his tantrum, but he couldn't move at all now. All he could do was sit there, slumped against the house, breathing hard. Karofsky span around to face him suddenly, those giant fists swinging at his sides, his face contorted with rage. He stormed forwards.

"You little fag, you'll pay for-"

"Get _away from me!"_

They both stopped in their tracks. Karofsky perhaps because he was shocked, alarmed that somebody had actually shouted at him like that. Kurt because he couldn't quite believe that a sound so twisted and raw had come from his own lips. They remained motionless, a thick silence stuck between them like ice, both suddenly scared to speak first. Karofsky's face had drained of colour, his lips suddenly thin and his body trembling like a leaf. Kurt let his head drop, the fury returning, rage pulsing hotly in his veins. This boy was the reason he was in so much pain. This Neanderthal was the person who had been ruining his life for so long that he couldn't remember the last time he had walked through the corridors of school without fear.

"You're pathetic, Lady," Karofsky snarled at last, finally daring to disturb the quiet. "I barely touched you."

Kurt lifted his head to fix the footballer with a smouldering glare. His voice was shrill when he spoke, wavering with tears and pain. "You broke my fucking ribs, you dickhead!"

Karofsky didn't answer. Kurt tried to swallow down the lump in his throat, the sobs in his chest. He put his head back, letting his eyes close again. He knew Karofsky was still watching him, but he didn't care any more. His lips felt strange. He didn't usually dignify jocks with using their kind of gutter language. Karofsky's words on his own tongue felt alien. He opened his eyes, squinted at the footballer. There was a strange emotion on his face, something Kurt had never seen before.

"What do you want?" he demanded tiredly. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk," Karofsky repeated, but his voice was smaller, thinner. He cleared his throat, pulled himself up to his full height. "You talked to the police yet? 'Cos someone's been talking to the school. My Dad got a phone call-"

"_I _haven't talked to anyone," Kurt muttered coldly. "I haven't spoken to the police yet."

"Well... good. You'd better not, or I'll-"

"You'll do what? What the hell more can you do to me? You've already destroyed me!"

Karofsky was staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and confusion plastered over his face. His mouth opened and closed blankly, fish-like. "What... What's that supposed to mean?"

Kurt shook his head wordlessly. His head was still throbbing, pounding so hard that he was beginning to see dark spots flickering in his vision. He blinked hard, took a few steadying breaths. The damp grass was cold beneath him, the wall hard against his back. He felt exhausted, as if that small bout of fury had drawn every last ounce of power out of him. His gaze had slid out of focus again. When he had blinked his way back to normality again, he realized with a jolt that Karofsky had moved towards him and crouched down a few steps away, hands tangling uncertainly in the grass. Kurt looked him up and down, looked at the dirt on his football jacket and the bags under his eyes.

"You look awful," he said at last, his voice scathing.

"I haven't been home for a few days."

Karofsky's lip was still curled in that ugly, disdainful way it always was when he came face to face with Kurt. His bunched shoulders still tensed as if all he wanted to do was drive his fists into Kurt's body like knives into butter. But his voice sounded as if it wasn't really his at all, shrivelled into something small and thin. And what he had just said was so strange, so unexpected, that Kurt had no idea how to respond. So he didn't say anything at all. He sat in a stunned silence as Karofsky trailed his fingers through the dirt. He lifted his head suddenly, fixed Kurt with those bloodshot eyes.

"Have you told them about... about..."

The memory of Karofsky's hands on his belt flashed through Kurt's head, and his skin prickled unpleasantly. He shook his head again. Karofsky's jaw clenched and he looked away quickly.

"I didn't... I don't do... that. I... I got mad. Lost... control." It was as if he couldn't get the words out, as if his lips had turned to stone.

"Lost control?" Kurt repeated dryly. "How can you... Do you have any idea what you almost did to me?"

Karofsky twitched as if he was about to dive forwards, his hands jerking as if he wanted to return them to Kurt's neck. But he remained on his knees. His lips were quivering.

"You shut up," he snapped. "You don't understand. You have no idea what it's like-"

"What, being gay?"

He'd pushed it too far - Karofsky lurched forwards, fist cocked. Kurt flinched back against the wall, yelped as the motion sent another wave of agony through his side and head. Darkness swarmed in on him with a vengeance and he could hear his own whimpers shuddering through the air. Karofsky's knuckles never connected with his face. In fact, when he came back to earth, he could hear the other boy speaking.

"What've you done... shit, will you stop making that sound? I said _shut up!_"

"Get off me," Kurt hissed, abruptly becoming aware of Karofsky's hand in his pyjamas again. He pushed feebly at the other boy's arm, desperate to just get him off. Karofsky let go.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Wrong with me?" Kurt opened his eyes. "Thanks to you, might be a brain injury. What's wrong with you?"

Karofsky sat back on his heels. Perhaps it was just Kurt's wavering vision, but he could have sworn that he could see tears in the footballer's eyes. Which was ridiculous, because Karofsky was a monster, and monsters didn't feel emotions like that.

"Brain injury?"

"What do you care?"

A long pause. "I won't be a fag," Karofsky mumbled. "I won't let this happen to me." He stood up suddenly, towering over Kurt, nothing more than a shadow in the darkness. His voice grew louder. "You hear me? I won't let it happen!"

Kurt looked up at him, narrowing his eyes until the three footballers above flickered into one. "You and I are more alike than you think," he said, unable to bite back the words that slurred from his mouth. "We both like to play pretend."

It was as if he had just fired a bullet into the footballer's face - Karofsky gazed at him, eyes stretched wide, and then span around and sprinted away. Kurt heard his footsteps racing away, heard the thuds turn to slaps as Karofsky reached the road. He blinked at the place the footballer had vanished, felt a tiny rush of satisfaction mixed with the bitter taste of pity. He wondered where Karofsky was planning to sleep tonight. At a friend's house? Or just in some doorway somewhere?

Perhaps there was some solace in the knowledge that there was actually one other person out there in the night whose life might be just as bad as Kurt's at this moment.

* * *

Kurt drifted off for a while. The cold night ate into his bones and froze his breath in his lungs. The darkness of the garden plastered itself over his eyelids and stayed there, even in those flickering seconds when he opened his eyes. His body was too painful, too heavy to force into movement. His head was hurting. Hurting so much that he felt as if strips of barbed wire were being drawn through his brain. Every time he began to inch towards real consciousness the ground began to buck and heave, and his stomach started to roll. Dizziness and headaches. Two of the several symptoms that had flowed off Doctor Ansten's tongue.

He didn't doubt that he would have remained there on the floor all night if Finn hadn't appeared at the corner of his house, his voice loud and shrill with suppressed panic, his footsteps fast and sharp on the cool ground. He was only wearing his pyjama t-shirt and boxers, a pair of grubby trainers pulled on hastily, laces trailing in the dirt. Finn's voice came hurtling through the fog in Kurt's head like a steam train, all horns blazing.

"Kurt! Kurt!"

"Here…"

Kurt's voice was a croak, but Finn heard him. The taller boy span around, staggered towards him, his tone a mixture of relief and wild anger. Kurt couldn't make his eyes focus on Finn's face, even when his step-brother dropped to his knees beside him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"What are you _doing _out here? You're freezing… Kurt, what the hell are you doing?"

Kurt blinked hazily. His tongue felt as if it didn't belong to him, or at least not enough to obey his brain's commands. Finn was still talking, speaking so quickly that Kurt couldn't understand a word he was saying. Something about being in bed. Kurt would like to be in bed at this moment.

"… woke up and you were just _gone, _do you know how terrified I was? You can't just walk out like that! How long've you been out here?"

Kurt thought he might have understood the last bit. He spoke again, feeling a twinge of despair at how thin and pathetic his voice sounded. "A while."

"Why?"

Kurt didn't say anything. His mind wasn't working well enough to put together an answer. He moved his arms for the first time in 'a while' and winced as his shoulders ached, his limbs cramped and stiff.

"Kurt? Hey, Kurt?"

"I want to go in."

Finn muttered something under his breath. Then he shifted forwards and slid a hand behind Kurt's back, pulled him away from the house. Kurt winced, tried to push his hands away, but there was nothing he could do. He was so weak by this time that Finn had to physically lift him off the ground. He fell against Finn, his legs as useful as pillars of jelly beneath him. The other boy was trying to hook an arm around his shoulders, but Kurt managed to force his legs to take some weight and began to move back towards the house alone. Finn sighed heavily but let him struggle, walking close beside him.

"Don't do that to me, man," he muttered. "I swear, I nearly had a heart attack."

Kurt stumbled on an uneven patch of ground; Finn's arm appeared around his shoulders in time to catch him. Kurt leant heavily on him for a few moments, his eyes drifting shut of their own accord. He wet his lips.

"How far?" he managed.

"Just here."

He nodded, took a few deep breaths. Then, allowing Finn to nudge him in the right direction, he began to move once more. He was beginning to feel dangerously detached from his own body, as if his mind was slowly sliding out through his ears. Finn's hand was growing tight on his arm. Or… no, he was beginning to sway, tugging against the other boy's grip.

"How far?"

"About the same."

He frowned at Finn's cryptic answer. The same? The same as what? He pushed his eyes open a crack, caught a glimpse of the front door. He felt a small flicker of hope – perhaps he would manage to remain conscious until he got there… it seemed that the thought had barely wriggled through his head than he was tripping again, this time on the stairs leading to the basement… he caught himself on the banister, blinking hard, staring around. He couldn't remember them going through the living room. Hell, he couldn't even remember entering the house.

"Almost there, come on."

Finn's voice. Finn was just behind him on the stairs. Kurt kept hold of the banister, refusing to move a single step. He didn't dare try in case he missed something again, in case his memory suddenly cut out like a faulty engine… He felt sick again. How was it even possible for him to have not noticed coming into the house when every step felt like a marathon? He clung to the metal pole, horribly aware of the nausea in his stomach. If he wasn't careful he was going to end up hurling right here in their bedroom…

"Kurt? Come on, man."

Finn again. Telling him to move. He really should move. The other boy was beginning to sound high-pitched again, that panicked tone which meant that he was a very short time away from doing something stupid like calling a hospital. Kurt lifted his head, squinted until the stairs swam into sight below him. Doubled over the banister as if he was imitating somebody who had just been stabbed, he continued his snail-progress towards the basement. He felt Finn's sigh of relief on the back of his neck when he finally made it to the ground. The taller boy half pulled, half carried him over to the blurred shape of his bed and sat him down. Kurt let himself drop down without bothering to pull back the duvet, his ribs searing and his head pounding, his mouth dry and scratchy. His hands felt like ice. He felt Finn pulling the duvet up over him, tugging the pillow straight. Kurt wanted to tell him to go away but felt that this might seem a little ungrateful considering that Finn had just rescued him from the stupor he had fallen into.

"Where'd you put your medication? Kurt? Hey, where'd you put it?"

Finn was shaking his arm. Kurt groaned irritably, swatted at his touch clumsily. "T'p drawer," he whispered. He heard Finn rummaging through said drawer and concentrated on forcing full words out. "I can't… have t'wait… four hours… in between…"

"It's been four hours."

Kurt shook his head. "Hasn'…"

"You had some at ten, right?"

"Yeah, have… t'wait… 'till morning."

Finn chuckled dryly. "Kurt, it _is _morning," he said, almost speaking to himself.

Kurt didn't believe him. But when Finn crouched down in front of him a little while later armed with a glass of water and two small white ovals, he didn't have the energy to argue. He managed to put the pills into his own mouth, but Finn had to lift the glass for him and help him drink. Kurt's eyes had fallen shut before Finn had lowered the glass. He let himself slump down onto the pillows again, felt Finn fussing over him, pulling the duvet up, patting it flat.

"You want me to stay with you today? You don't look so good… Kurt?"

"Mmmm."

"Okay. Listen, I'm leaving this here." The clink of glass on his bedside table. "See how you feel later. Maybe I could go in at lunch today." The squeak of trainers on the floor. Finn was standing up. Kurt felt like he should be thanking him. In the end, he decided his mind was too scrambled to come to any decent conclusion now. So, throwing caution to the winds, he relaxed and slept.

**Thanks for reading. Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kurt's gorgeous little smile, or Glee. Probably for the best.**

**With a bit of a mind flip... we're into a time slip! XD Can't believe Glee actually did a version of Rocky Horror. And that Kurt looked good as Riff Raff. I've finally lost all kind of taste. Anyone else thought Artie's "With your hands on your hips!" was awesome? :) lol**

**Anywho, we really are into a time slip. Jumping forwards just a little bit, not too far.**

**Thanks for the reviews.**

"And step, step, back-and-forward, step, step, back-and-forward. And jump! And back! And jump! And side! And jump!"

Mr. Schue's voice was horribly positive, jammed full of the excitement that meant that yet another ancient song was about to be slipped into their collection before the day was out. Possibly a newly discovered Journey song. Or something by some obscure eighties band nobody had ever heard of, usually for a good reason. Either way, the faces of the Glee club were rapidly beginning to glaze over as each accepted their inevitable fate. Kurt would have been happily joining in with these dramatic sighs and long, wistful stares into space, but his ribs were aching so much that he was holding his breath. Which was never good, because these days when he held his breath, he got dizzy. And getting dizzy led to several other… problems.

For the sixth time in the last twenty minutes, he stopped in the middle of a new dance sequence. His breaks were becoming more frequent and lasting much longer as the session went on, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had learned the hard way what would happen if he pushed himself too hard. If he wanted to keep his dignity, breathers were the only solution.

Only this time, the pain in his side wasn't fading.

He held his ribs wearily, pressed a shaking hand against his eyes. Somewhere nearby, he could still hear Mr. Schue counting the steps, hear the unenthusiastic shuffles and thuds of the rest of the group. The sounds were faded, muffled, as if he was listening to them underwater. He knew that if he didn't rejoin them soon, he would begin to attract attention to himself… but he couldn't do it any longer. His head was throbbing. _Oh, not now…_

He side-stepped the group and began to make his way slowly towards the stairs at the side of the stage. His vision had shrunk dangerously – he could make out the ground directly in front of him and little else. Mr. Schue was still counting, his voice a little quieter now. Kurt reached the steps, stretched out a hand to hold the banister. Five steps to the bottom. He took the first, paused for a break, attempted the second. His side was on fire. Three. He screwed his eyes closed. Four. Lean on the banister. Stay upright. One more. Five… ground. He unpeeled his fingers from the safety of the banister and limped uneasily to the first row, slumped down in the closest seat.

There he sat, the bright lights of the Auditorium blazing blood-red through his eyelids, his arm curled around his traitorous ribs, his blood pounding furiously in his aching head. He leant his elbows on the armrests, dropped his head into his hands. A week and a half, and he felt barely any better than he had the day Finn and Blaine had dragged him into the hospital. After Karofsky's unexpected visit, even the painkillers had been unable to drive his persistent thoughts away. More and more he found himself haunted by the idea of the footballer reappearing, breaking into his house, coming back to finish the job… and by the knowledge that they really weren't so different. Both were running. Both were faking. Both were backed into unimaginable corners.

He had finally convinced Finn to let him come back to school at the beginning of the week. The other boy had been wary of the idea, reluctant to even let him out of the house since the incident in the garden. Kurt hadn't told him about Karofsky, but Finn was on his guard all the same. Still, when Finn was around, Kurt managed to keep up a healthy façade rather effectively. His bruises and swelling around his face had gone down a lot over his time at home – mostly due to his careful moisturising and cream treatment every morning and night – and aside from his lip, temple, and a light shade of darkness over one eye, he was looking deceptively more like himself. Kurt was careful to never let Finn see the bruises that still lingered over his ribs; these were harder to budge. They had changed from red and purple to a greyish-yellow which stretched right across his ribs over one side. The pain remained the same, stubbornly refusing to feel any better no matter how much he willed himself to heal. And true, when he moved around too much his head felt like the inside of a blender. And sometimes he felt dizzy and sick for no reason at all. And sometimes he would be on his way upstairs and completely forget what he was supposed to be doing the moment he reached the top step.

But Finn didn't have to know that.

So, somehow, he had managed to talk Finn into letting him come back to school. Part of the reason Finn allowed him to do so may have been because it would stop everyone from begging him to relay messages to his bed-ridden step-brother. Every member of the Glee club – and several of the Cheerios – were pressing him for details of Kurt's condition. Still, when Kurt shrugged his way gingerly into his coat and lifted his bag onto his shoulder with a wince, Finn's face creased into an uncertain scowl.

"This is a stupid idea."

The phrase continued to slip out of his mouth throughout the journey to school and then all the way down the corridor. It took Kurt a while to realize that Finn actually intended to follow him about from lesson to lesson, 'just in case', and then even longer for Kurt to convince an anxious, irritable Finn that such surveillance was certainly not necessary. Thankfully, Mercedes had appeared before the argument could escalate and rescued him.

And then there had been questions.

They had all wanted to know the details. _Exactly_ what happened. And how? And what did it _feel _like? And does it still hurt? And has the Doctor said anything about how long it'll last? And what about Karofsky? Are the police involved? And his father?

By the end of the day, Kurt was exhausted. It had all felt like a rather surreal blur of interrogations, relieved and emotional hugs, and concerned hands on his back or around his shoulders as if he was in need of shelter from the world after his 'ordeal.' His day had consisted either of people throwing themselves at him as if he had risen from the dead, or steering well clear of him with eyes averted as if he had returned a zombie. The small bruising still on his face drew some stares, but not as many as he had feared. Even Puck somehow found time to step smartly into his path on the way to the lunch line and elbow the other students out of the way, leading him to the front with the kind of authority only gained through a mixture of fear and respect.

"You alright, Hummel?" he had demanded, and when Kurt nodded, he'd continued with, "Good. Any trouble, I'm your man."

And then, perhaps realising he'd just said 'I'm your man' to a homosexual in the middle of the canteen, he had left rather quickly leaving a bemused Kurt alone at the front of the queue with his tray. Puck wasn't the only odd visitor either. He had expected some people to be concerned and happy to see him – people like Artie, Tina, Mike, Sam, Rachel (in a way) – but to find himself cornered between lessons by a wide-eyed Quinn flanked by Santana and Brittany was so unexpected that he'd had to glance at Mercedes for confirmation that his concussion wasn't playing with his head. Especially when Brittany enquired as to whether the doctors had given him an artificial brain to replace his 'bashed' one.

"Take it easy, okay Kurt?" Quinn had said as she left, offering him a smile. Santana had even deemed to nod to him, her lips quirking into the closest thing to a smile that was not a smirk that she could manage. He appreciated the effort, even if it didn't quite come off.

So went the first few days of his return to the land of the living. And through those first few days, he had managed to keep himself together. He'd only had a couple of instances to worry about. Sometimes he stood too quickly and once had staggered into the lockers when he tried to look over his shoulders while walking, resulting in a knock that sent his head reeling for several minutes. Twice he'd had to leave lessons to hang his head over the toilet, his stomach churning viciously. He'd had a few conversations which seemed to start halfway through, when he couldn't remember how he got there or what he was supposed to be talking about.

He bluffed his way through. He had to. Because tomorrow – Friday – was the day that his father and new step-mother returned from their honeymoon. Tomorrow was the day that he had to be able to convince his father that he was absolutely fine.

A hand landed on his arm and he lifted his head to squint at the curly-haired figure who had crouched down in front of him. Beyond it on the stage the Glee club were still performing, now led by Rachel, although their gazes flicked continuously between their bossy leader and Kurt. The figure in front of him said his name, and Kurt blinked. Mr. Schue's eyes narrowed worriedly as they travelled over Kurt's face; Kurt wiped self-consciously at the sweat on his forehead.

"Sorry," he said, just about managing to keep his voice steady. "Just needed a break."

"Like I said before," Mr. Schue said softly, lowering his voice to keep it out of earshot of the others, "You only do as much as you feel comfortable. You know, Kurt, I still don't think you should be performing this soon."

"I'm fine," Kurt snapped, furious more with himself than with his teacher. "I just got tired, that's all."

"Come on, Kurt." Mr. Schue straightened, moved to sit beside him in the first row. "Anyone could see how much you're struggling. Are you sure you should be back at school already? I think maybe you should go back to the hospital for another check up–"

"Not that your concern isn't well meant," Kurt interrupted coolly, meeting his gaze, "But that's none of your business."

He regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. They were defensive, belligerent, and too icy to come off smoothly. He had just revealed that he had something to hide, destroying all of his work to appear just as normal. Mr. Schue's eyebrow quirked upwards a little, and Kurt looked quickly down at his lap. The pause stretched between them. He never had been able to lie effectively to Mr. Schue. He blamed it on his teacher's nature: it was easy to lie to people who had somewhere else to be, people who didn't care so much about your story. But Mr. Schue was the exact opposite. His teacher sighed quietly, shifted in his seat.

"I didn't mean to pry. I'm just concerned, Kurt. We all are."

Kurt stared at the ground, his jaw clenched grimly. He didn't trust himself to speak, just in case something slipped out that he was trying to keep hidden. Up on the stage, a heated argument had started up between Santana and Rachel. The rest of the Glee club were either groaning with boredom or trying to break up the fight. Puck had actually wandered off and sat down on one of the stage blocks, his fingers flying over his mobile. He wished that Mr. Schue would just go back to them and leave him alone. And then he wished that he could just tell him everything and let it all end.

"When does your Dad get back?"

"Tomorrow."

"Well, that's something," Mr. Schue murmured, offering him a smile. Kurt didn't look at him. Mr. Schue shook his head and then rose to his feet. "How about you sit the next sequence out? And if you ever need to talk... well, you know where I'll be."

He left before Kurt could find an answer. Kurt lifted his head, watched as Mr. Schue clapped his hands loudly in an attempt to regain the group's attention. Rachel and Santana were practically spitting poison at each other by this stage; Mr. Schue had to step between them to finally get them to calm down. Kurt reached for his bag, which lay heaped with the others a few feet away in the same row, and retrieved a bottle of water and the box of pills with shaking hands. He was onto his last two tablets. Without the pain killers, he was certain that the mask he was being so careful to keep in place was going to crack. But there was no way to get more unless he went back to the hospital again. And he couldn't do that. He couldn't let them tell him what he knew was true, couldn't let his nightmares becoming a terrible reality. He choked down the pills and closed his eyes, gripping his bottle tightly with both hands. He waited until the pain had faded to a bearable level. Then, teeth gritted, he heaved himself to his feet and moved slowly back up onto the stage. He felt their eyes on him, but didn't offer an explanation. They couldn't ask anyway - they were now in the middle of the next song. He stepped into place beside Mercedes, who moved closer to brush her hand against his. A question, an offer of support. She was a tower of strength to him, someone he knew he could lean on without fear of being ridiculed or let down.

He managed a smile for her. His head was swimming again before he had even begun to sing.

**This was a space-filler chapter really. I can't stand them, but it had to be done. Almost finished with this story now, only a few more chapters to go I think. Hope you enjoyed it.**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I can deal with it...**

**Thanks for the reviews :)**

He knew it was going to be a terrible day the moment he opened his eyes. There were several reasons for this - one, his head felt as if it was actually pulsating with agony, as if his brain was crushing itself against the sides of his skull. Two, when he opened his eyes his vision was so fuzzy that he could barely focus on the blurry figures of his alarm clock. And three, he had a gut instinct that something bad was going to happen. Without needing any kind of divine sign or supernatural indication, he knew without question that this was the day that everything was going to go wrong.

He rolled out of bed and fumbled his way to the bathroom, legs shaking, the ground swerving unnervingly beneath his bare feet. He leant heavily on the sink, pressed his forehead to the cool glass of the mirror. He was hot. He could feel sweat on the back of his neck. He counted to ten, and then sat down heavily on the toilet seat as his head began to spin. He felt sick. Really sick. He felt for the bathroom cupboard before remembering that he had finished the last of his pills the day before. He had nothing to numb himself with. He sat there for a long time, trying to pull himself together, searching for the strength to claw his way back to life. Still, it was only when Finn knocked impatiently on the door and told him to get a move on that he found the enegry to heave himself to his feet and study his reflection in the mirror. He looked terrible. Over the past two weeks, he had become a completely different person. His hair was dishevelled and lank. His skin was pale and thin, revealling tiny webs of veins stretching across his skull. His eyes had sunk into dark circles, and were permanently tinted with a light hue of pink that gave them an unhealthy, bloodshot appearance. His shoulders had become slightly hunched after so many days of curling around his injured ribs. He brushed his teeth and washed his face, tried to breathe some life back into his zombie-like complexion. Then he shuffled back out, allowing Finn to dart past him.

He pulled on his clothes slowly. Every little movement seemed to take an age to complete, every step or motion was an incredible effort that left him feeling drained. And through it all his head refused to stop hurting. He felt foggy, disjointed, cut off from everything around him, like a balloon cut loose from its safe, strong string and sent spiralling into empty air. Eventually, he found himself sitting on the edge of his bed and gazing at his bedside cabinet. He pulled open the small drawer, stared into it with glazed eyes. Doctor Ansten's number lay crumpled at the bottom of it amongst combs and CDs, forgotten and cast away. He imagined picking up his mobile, keying in that number, letting the hospital stick him with needles and tubes until he ceased to feel. It would be so very easy to just let it all end. Wouldn't his father understand? Wouldn't they all understand? Nobody could stay strong forever. Eventually even the strongest towers begin to crumble...

Finn emerged from the bathroom, half-in and half-out of his sweatshirt, complaining loudly about the time. Kurt shut the drawer.

He didn't eat. He knew that if he ate he would throw up. Instead, he pretended to have an extract he needed to read and stared blindly at a book until Finn was tumbling out of the front door. Then he packed his satchel, dragged on his coat, pulled on some shoes. Everything felt so vague, so distant. Even the crisp morning air was ash in his lungs. The faded sunlight sent huge bolts of agony through his head and he kept his eyes shut all the way to school. Finn was speaking, but Kurt couldn't understand a word he was saying. He nodded, grunted at appropriate intervals, tried to block out the incessant chatter as best he could. _Little longer, _he told himself. _Just hold it together for a little longer... _He clambered slowly out of the car when it stopped. Finn dashed on ahead, shouting something over his shoulder as he went. Kurt heaved his satchel onto his aching shoulder and followed slowly. He couldn't even remember where he was supposed to be going. Late history? Or maths? He wasn't sure. Somebody pushed past him on his way into the building and his whole world lurched violently - he felt himself hit the lockers, gripped them with white-knuckled hands until everything stopped spinning.

He somehow ended up in a lesson. He got there in a daze, sat watching the teacher's mouth move, deaf to the whole world. Then the teacher turned away, and he looked instead at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. He held a pen poised over it. He wrote his name. He couldn't remember the date. Or the day. No, he could remember... this was the day that his father came home. This was the day he was supposed to go with Finn after school to the air port to meet the newly-weds, welcome them home, become a happy family. They were all so close to becoming that perfect family he had always wanted - a mother, a father, a brother... everything was coming together exactly as he had planned, expect for the little problem that was wrecking havoc in his head. He felt like crying. Then he felt like laughing. The lesson ended, and he hadn't written a single thing. He drifted with the crowds to his next lesson, following somebody he recognised and managing to get to the right place. He wandered from classroom to classroom, spent break time at his locker trying to remember what he had gone to it to get. It was as if he was already going, as if it was already all over. All there was now was the formalities. Every sense seemed to have shrivelled into nothing, every thought that entered his mind melted into nothingness before he had a chance to realise what it was. His mobile buzzed as it received texts. One from Blaine. He couldn't make himself focus for long enough to read it. He only understood that it was lunchtime when Mercedes appeared in front of him. She talked for a while, laughing about something that had happened in her last lesson, expressing a powerful desire for something chocolatey, demanding to know why he hadn't answered any of her texts. He tried to speak, despite the fact that his tongue wasn't working.

She may have been the first person to really look at him in the whole day. Because her smile vanished when her eyes met his, and as her gaze moved over his face she reached for his hand. She said one word a few times. He frowned, doing his best, concentrating.

"Kurt? Kurt?"

He blinked, nodded. "Huh?"

"What's wrong?"

He didn't know what to say to that. What was wrong? Where to begin? She waited, the concern in her face growing with every second. He felt a sudden wave of guilt. She didn't deserve this kind of thing, she had been nothing but supportive over the last few days. He tried to smile, lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She cocked her head, then tugged gently at his hand.

"Come on. Coffee? I'll get it."

He followed her grip, walking after her as a two year old toddles after its mother, her hand a sudden life-line in his blurry vision. A sign of hope. Maybe, if he held onto her hand, kept her fingers entwined with his own, everything would somehow be alright. Maybe if he kept this connection, she could save him from everything that was going wrong. If he held on to her. Maybe. The world tilted again, and the sickness hit him with renewed vengeance. God, he couldn't throw up in the middle of the canteen. Everyone would see. Everyone would look, and everyone would know. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, tightened his clasp on Mercedes' hand. She squeezed back.

"Can we sit?" he said, the words thin and weak in the dull roar of noise around them.

"Yeah, sure. Artie and Tina have a table over there. You go ahead if you want, I'll get yours."

He shook his head dumbly. Going over to the table would mean letting go of her hand, and that was out of the question. He squinted through the haze around him, made out the dark shapes of people moving past him. They were standing in the queue for the food hatch, Mercedes peering into her purse for money for the coffee machine beside it. All around them people were talking and shouting, but he could hear only a dim, monotonous buzz, as if a thick wall was separating him from everyone else. It was getting hard to breathe, hard to focus. His eyes slid sideways, made out Artie and Tina on the other side of the room. Mr. Schue was standing nearby, talking to Puck with a vaguely disapproving look on his face. And there was Quinn and Sam over by the window, and Rachel saying something loudly to a blank-faced Brittany. And Finn was coming through the doors, looking around, taking a gulp from a can.

They were all here. All of them. He had a sudden, insane notion that if he reached out now, if he told them all the truth, then everything would be fine. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Mercedes pulled at him. He took another step that felt like a mile. Everything was turning, moving slowly at first, and gradually speeding up. Heat on his back, cold sweat on his forehead. He brushed at it with a trembling hand, closed his eyes in a long, hard blink. Looked up. The canteen was still spinning, splotched with large black and white dots. His head was on fire, searing and throbbing, pounding with an agony that tore through him like a knife. Mercedes moved away from the food hatch, a tray in one hand, began to make her way towards Artie and Tina. She passed him his coffee as they stepped out of the line.

Does everyone know when it's about to happen? Does the teenager, headphones strapped to their head, know instinctively when a car appears out of nowhere and comes at them from behind with inescapable speed? They say that some people can tell when 'it' is coming, they become quiet and reserved, they accept it. They find peace in that short pause before oblivion hits; they find the understanding and humanity to shrug their shoulders and decide that this must be their time. Kurt wondered if other people had woken on their own fateful morning simply knowing, stepped onto that bus with a subconscious realization that it was about to collide with a shop window. He wondered what flashed through their heads in that final second, if they could pin-point the exact time when it happened. It must be possible. And he was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that 'it' happened in the moment when he let go of Mercedes' hand as she crossed the canteen towards the others. He saw her hair shining in the glow of the sun blazing through the canteen windows. And then the pain got worse.

He heard a crash. The world began to float in and out, like a bad signal on a radio. Darkness slammed across his eyes, then vanished, then returned. He was aware that the canteen floor was tilting again, and then of the ceiling above him. Lots of shouting. A damp heat spreading over one sleeve. He realised dimly that he had dropped his coffee, that it had spilt all over the floor and was now soaking into his jacket. A shame, he liked this jacket. And there was a wetness on his upper lip as well, something that tasted coppery when it ran into his mouth. Odd.

Mercedes came back into sight, her face taught with shouts of horror and shock, her eyes stretched wide. Her lips formed cries, but he could hear nothing at all. He saw her holding his hand, clinging to it. He was sure that the pressure of her nails on his skin should hurt, and yet he felt nothing. He couldn't feel the floor either. It was as if he was already falling. He moved his eyes sluggishly to their interwoven fingers. _Too late now, _he thought blearily. _I should never have let go in the first place. _He caught a glimpse of her other hand coming down on his cheek, looked back up at her slowly. There were more faces now. Some he recognised, others were too fuzzy to see. There was somebody very close by at his side who could have been Mr. Schue. They were all big eyes and writhing mouths and flying hands.

He felt very hot, and then suddenly freezing cold. And then the agony reached a level he had never even thought possible, and he felt himself slipping. Darkness closed over his head. In the moment before that last sliver of reality blinked out, he thought he heard somebody laughing. He felt as if he was back on that small plastic swing again, soaring through the air, slender hands wrapped around him, velvety curls hanging down from above, soft lips and arms bigger than the sky... and those blue eyes...

**Not quite the end yet :)**

**And BTW, I think Karofsky is making one last appearance before the end.**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I can deal with it...**

**Sorry for the wait.**

**Thanks for the reviews :)**

The emergency room smelled of vomit, blood and disinfectant. It was virtually empty, the only other occupants two men who appeared to have got into a fight with one another and a little boy with a broken arm. On the other side of the room, grouped around a vending machine on hard plastic chairs, were the rest of the visitors to the ER of the hospital. And the thick silence that hovered over their small corner seemed to seep into the whole building.

When Kurt dropped to the floor in the middle of the canteen, everything seemed to freeze.

Perhaps the reason it had terrified them all so much was that they should have seen it coming. Everything about him, from the vacant, glazed stare in his eyes to the way his shoulders hunched and his arm remained glued to his side - everything was screaming that something was terribly wrong. And they had all missed it, they had all glossed over it, telling themselves that he wouldn't like the fuss or that he was just recovering. But now it seemed ridiculous that they had ignored him; his white skin, his bloodshot eyes, the thin sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead, his limp hair... how could they have let it slide?

The image of him on the floor, his coffee soaking into his jacket sleeve, a tiny trail of blood creeping from the corner of his nose, was something that was sure to haunt Mercedes' memories for weeks - months - to come. Those moments she had spent on her knees beside him, his limp hand clasped in both of her own, were some of the most horrifying of her life. His purple-ringed eyes remained closed no matter how much she called his name, no matter how tightly she held his fingers. The worst of it was when his eyes drifted open at last, but then stared straight through him, blind, empty. Mr. Schue arrived as his gaze slid hazily from side to side, his lips parting as if to speak.

Mr. Schue sent Tina to find the nurse while Mercedes began to dab at the blood flowing heavily from Kurt's nose. He blinked slowly, eyes roving over the ceiling while Mr. Schue tried to pull him back to earth with carefully calm but firm words. The others appeared quickly, pushing through the gathering crowd of curious students to group around them, Rachel's voice loud and intrusive above the rest. Mercedes tried to ignore them all, keeping her eyes on Kurt, willing him to look back at her. She forced smiles through her budding tears, pushed his hair out of his eyes with shaking fingers. For a moment she thought he might have focussed on her, something flickering in his vacant eyes. She heard Finn's voice, saw him pushing his way to the front of the crowd, his eyes wide with shock. And Kurt chose that moment to let his eyes roll back into his head, a whimper escaping his bloodless lips before he fell limp beside her.

She had never been so terrified in her life.

Things happened quickly after that. One moment Mercedes was crouched beside him, tears flowing uncontrollably from her eyes, the next the other students were being ushered out of the canteen by a couple of panicked teachers and she was being pushed out of the way by the school nurse. And Finn was yelling something, held back by a grim-faced Mr. Schue who was trying to tell him to call somebody, call Burt... And then all at once paramedics were spilling into the canteen with a stretcher. Mercedes, who had been allowed to stay along with several of the other members of the Glee club, were left to watch the two green-uniformed men lift Kurt's lifeless body onto the stretcher, pulling a plastic oxygen mask over his face. His eyelids were beginning to flutter again, his hand groping uncertainly for his head - Mercedes found herself scrambling over to him and snatching up his hand once more, clinging to him like a lifeline. Finn was texting shakily on his mobile, his lips pressed tightly together, his face white, Rachel holding his arm. Mercedes barely acknowledged him. All she could see were the whites of Kurt's eyes flickering beneath his lids.

They tried to make her let go. Mr. Schue appeared at one point, trying to pull her gently away from the stretcher, but she refused to relinquish her grip. Perhaps they didn't have time to argue with her, because within seconds the paramedics were shoving their way out into the corridors, Mercedes staggering along beside them. Finn was somewhere nearby, along with Rachel and Mr. Schue. Artie, Tina, Quinn and Puck were following at a distance, whispering to one another. Mercedes was deaf to them, blind to the stares of the other students in the corridor. Kurt's head rolled towards her, his eyes opened once more and his gaze seemed to meet hers. She said something - his name, and something alone the lines of 'It's going to be fine' - before his eyes shut again. And then they were out of the school, and she was climbing into the ambulance with them, one last glance over her shoulder telling her that Mr. Schue had just ushered Finn and Rachel into his car and was about to follow.

But once at the ER, she couldn't keep up. More nurses, more doctors, more _people _were pushing between her and Kurt, racing towards a pair of double doors. Somebody jogged her, and Kurt's hand slipped out of her own. She heard a cry leave her own lips, but then they were gone and the doors were slamming shut behind them, and she was left alone in the emergency room. She stood there for a long time, watching the doors, hardly daring to move should Kurt suddenly appear miraculously healed. After a while Mr. Schue, Finn and Rachel arrived. They moved together to the corner, and sat in a huddled group on the plastic chairs, and waited.

Time passed. Finn left the room twice to take calls from his father, and then once more with Mr. Schue when a doctor appeared. He returned with eyes red with tears. He looked as if he was about to faint, trembling violently and so pale that Rachel actually leapt to her feet to lead him to a chair. She sat him down, wrapped her arms around him. He didn't seem to see her. Mr. Schue touched his shoulder, looking shaken himself.

"Brain," Finn mumbled. "They said there might be something wrong with his brain."

Mercedes closed her eyes.

More time passed. Mercedes answered concerned texts from the rest of the Glee club. They wanted to come down and wait with them, but Mercedes told them not to. She told them Finn needed space. Perhaps it was selfish, but she couldn't imagine their awkward comforting, their fear, their anxiety gnawing on her nerves like hungry wolves. She couldn't bear them to be here. So she told them to stay away, and their silence continued. Mr. Schue stayed with them, murmuring about how he couldn't leave them alone without an adult to supervise them, despite the fact that he spent most of the time pacing or chewing nervously on his nails. For once, Rachel was speechless. Nurses smiled across at them sympathetically from their desk, one occasionally crossing to them to offer coffee. No one agreed to one. They watched seconds tick by on the white clock on the wall.

And then Burt Hummel arrived.

The unbreakable bond between Kurt and his father had never ceased to amaze Mercedes. The two of them were so different, and yet the their relationship was something that seemed to be able to withstand any storm. They used one another for strength, for support and for happiness. Mercedes had seen the effect a fracture in that relationship could cause after Burt's heart attack. This time, however, things seemed to be happening in reverse. This time it was Burt who strode into the ER with a strained face and clenched fists. Carole was on his heels, trying to snatch at his hand to slow him down, whispering about his heart, but for once Burt wasn't listening to her. His eyes scanned the room desperately, and focussed on Finn.

"Finn! What the hell happened, what's going on?"

Finn lurched unsteadily to his feet, his eyes wide with a sudden fear. "K-Kurt... his h-head," he stammered thinly.

"His head? What about it?"

"Finn, are you all right?" Carole said, moving over to him, reaching out to hug him. Finn clung to her, shaking his head desperately. Burt's eyebrow was twitching; he rounded on Mr. Schue.

"Tell me what happened," he barked. "Finn said on the phone that he collapsed at school."

"The doctor wasn't clear," Mr. Schue said, rising to his feet. "They wanted to wait for you before they discussed anything-"

Burt whirled away from them, hurled himself at the desk instead. "Burt Hummel," he said, words tumbling out of his mouth. "My son, I need to see my son. Someone, please tell me what's going on!"

"Mr. Hummel?"

Mercedes flinched, then stood up as she saw the doctor moving towards them. Burt virtually threw himself at the taller man, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Yes, yes, where's my son?" he demanded, his voice shrill. "What happened?"

The doctor hesitated, his gaze flickering towards the others. "Perhaps we could go somewhere more private to discuss-"

"Just tell me," Burt snarled. "I need to know."

The doctor paused a moment longer, but seemed to understand the urgency in Burt Hummel's face. He gestured to the chairs, motioning for Burt to sit. Burt did so warily, perched on the edge of his seat as if he was about to dive out of it.

"I want to see him," he said stiffly.

"Of course," the doctor replied, in a tone which appeared to have been manufactured to radiate calm understanding. "However, I would prefer it if we could talk first."

"Well?"

"My name is Doctor Ansten, Mr. Hummel," the doctor said. "I treated your son around two weeks ago, when he came in after that previous incident-"

"What previous incident?"

The words dropped from Burt's lips like flecks of burning oil. Mercedes saw Finn's face grow distinctly paler, saw him shift closer to his mother as if she could somehow protect him. Doctor Ansten's eyebrows jumped slightly, his gaze moving from Finn to Burt and back again. The pause stretched on, and Burt turned on Finn instead, his face clenched with suppressed anger.

"_What _previous incident, Finn?" he repeated.

"Finn?" Carole murmured, frowning at him.

Finn swallowed hard. Mercedes could see his chest heaving with sort, sharp breaths from across the room.

"He... Karofsky... he and Kurt... well, Kurt got beat up... about two weeks ago-"

_"Two weeks?" _Burt's voice rang through the room, silencing Finn's hesitant world in a moment. "Two... why the hell didn't you call me? Why did nobody tell me?"

"Finn," Carole said, gazing at him. "You should have let us know!"

"I know, I know!" Finn shook his head, running both hands through his hair. "He said I shouldn't tell you, he said I had to keep it quiet or it might upset you-"

_"Upset me?"_

"Mr. Hummel," Doctor Ansten interrupted, drawing Burt's blazing glare away from the footballer at last. "Perhaps if I explain the situation to you?"

Burt shook his head, his face almost twitching with anger. Doctor Ansten closer, clearly trying to regain his client's attention.

"Your son came to see me a while ago with multiple injuries. He had suffered severe bruising and cracked ribs, as well as trauma to the face and a serious concussion-"

"_Finn?"_

"-which I warned him could lead to more complex problems in terms of damage to his brain."

"He didn't tell me that," Finn said, his face draining of what little colour it had left. "He didn't tell me, I didn't know, I never would've-"

"His brain?" Burt repeated, his voice fainter. "I don't... what about his brain?"

"I'm afraid severe concussions can lead to swelling of the brain," Doctor Ansten explained softly. "I organised for your son to come back for a check up just in case any symptoms of this arose, but he never showed up."

Burt stared at the doctor, his mouth open in horror. He stood up abruptly, paced away from them, came back. He rubbed a hand over the back of his head, scrubbed it over his eyes.

"And... and now?" he said hoarsely.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Hummel," Doctor Ansten said. "I'm afraid Kurt's brain has indeed been swelling gradually for a while now. If he had come to me sooner we might have been able to avoid this, but as it is..."

"You must be able to do something," Carole broke in. "There must be some sort of treatment?"

"There are things we can do. We can offer him oxygen therapy, and medication to help relieve the swelling, but at this stage we'll have to lower his body temperature."

"I don't understand."

"Induced hypothermia can be very effective in reducing swelling of the brain. It's a more risky method, but I believe at this stage we should try everything before we turn to surgery-"

"Surgery?"

Burt's voice shook as he spoke, and Carole quickly moved over to him and took his arm, squeezing it tightly. Finn had dropped heavily into a chair, his head in his hands, his eyes tightly shut. Mercedes felt as if an unbearable weight was pressing down on her chest, rendering her unable to breathe, unable to think. That single word flashed through her mind like a curse.

"Surgery may be our only option if your son's condition does not improve. There are several options, although I believe our best move would be a ventriculostomy."

Burt stared at him, wet his lips. "I don't... what is that?"

"We would cut a small hole in the skull in order to insert a draining tube to relieve some of the pressure..."

Mercedes couldn't listen anymore. Indeed, at that single moment, everybody seemed to crumble. Finn let out a groan, Carole covered her mouth with one hand, Burt's whole body stiffened in horror, and Mr. Schue sat down again quickly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it again. Doctor Ansten let his voice trail off, giving them a moment to absorb the shock. Silence descended on them in a sickening wave. Mercedes brushed at her eyes, swallowing back a thick sob, trying to control herself.

"I understand this has all been rather overwhelming-"

Burt shook his head, a croak escaping his lips. "I need to see him. Now."

Doctor Ansten nodded, rising to his feet. "Yes, of course. I'll take you to him at once."

Carole made to follow, but Burt pushed her hand away gently. "I need a minute," he muttered. "How about you talk to Finn?"

And before anybody could say anything, Burt Hummel was following Doctor Ansten through the large double doors ahead of him, leaving them all behind. Mercedes sank back into her chair, pressing both hands over her face. She heard Finn make a small, broken sound that didn't sound like him at all. And then all she could hear was a loud roaring in her ears, and her own heaving gasps as she struggled to breathe through the tears rushing over her cheeks.

**Reviews are welcome :)**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I can deal with it...**

**And YES Karofsky is indeed making one last appearance... but not in this chapter. :) But soon...**

The sight of his own son lying in a hospital bed surrounded by IV lines and blinking machines was something that Burt Hummel would never, never be able to forget. The worst nightmare of every parent is to see their child in such a state, to imagine that their child may slip away from life before they do themselves. A father who finds himself left to bury his son so early in life is the kind of horror that destroys men.

Burt had already watched his wife be lowered into the cold earth in a wooden coffin. And if he had to watch his son follow her, he knew that his heart - medical issues or none - would break.

Kurt seemed dwarfed by the bed he lay in, his arms suddenly stick-thin, his face sunken. Dark circles ringed his eyes and a small gash ran across one temple. A couple of bruises still remained along his jaw, but that was nothing compared to the ugly, purple-yellowed blotches that had blossomed across his side. Cracked ribs, the doctor had said. The words echoed through Burt's mind like gunshots, like curses. _Concussion. Cracked ribs. Brain swelling..._ That one was the worst. That was the one that made Burt envision corpses and graveyards. Or a son who had been reduced to nothing but a drooling vegetable. But maybe that would be more bearable compared to the hours of uncertainty passing by now. Doctor Ansten had explained that the 'induced hypothermia' had already begun, and that it was responsible for the violent, jerking shivers that rolled through Kurt's body every other second. The horrible shuddering made Burt's skin crawl, made him want to tear the hateful water blanket that was dragging his body temperature down away and burn it. Not that the action would do anything to relieve the drugs that were now coursing through his system.

Doctor Ansten said that the swelling had excelled to such an extent that, if it did not begin to decrease within twenty four hours, surgery would be unavoidable. Which meant that now, every time Burt closed his eyes, he saw some masked stranger drilling a hole through his son's skull.

So he kept his eyes open, and he kept his gaze on Kurt. He watched every tremble, every flinch. He endured the way Kurt's eyelids fluttered from time to time, the way tiny, painful sounds fled from his bluing lips. He held that slender, limp hand in his own and squeezed it when shivers were particularly bad, tried to think of something comforting to say that might seep through the barrier that now lay between them. He had never felt so utterly helpless in his whole life. There were several other beds in the ICU, only a couple of which that were occupied. A blue curtain hid them from the rest of the visitors, and Burt was glad of that. He didn't want to know what was happening in the other beds. He didn't want to see his own fear etched on the faces of the others in the room. Even though, hidden behind the blue folds of sterilized material, he felt oddly isolated. As if he and Kurt were the only beings left alive. As if there was nothing left to help them but bleeping machines.

Nurses came to check on them every so often, came to squint at the machines and scribble on clipboards. Came to take hold of Kurt's hand and ask him to squeeze their fingers. Came to prop his eyelid open and shine a light into his eyes. Burt stared into his son's face and prayed for some kind of movement, any sign of recognition that might indicate that his son still had a personality left inside his mind. The nurses always left with a faint, sad frown on their faces. After a while, Burt stopped looking up as they came in. Which was why he didn't realise he had been joined by his newly-wedded wife until she put her arms around him and leant her head on his shoulder.

"How are you?" she murmured.

He reached up to take her hand. Carole planted a kiss on his cheek, then straightened and moved around the bed to Kurt's other side. She pushed his fringe to the side, her lips twitching at the clammy quality of his skin.

"Where are the others?" Burt asked quietly.

"Will's taken Mercedes home. She was threatening to stay all night, but the doctors were only letting family through anyway. I said I'd call if anything happened. Rachel's gone too."

"Finn?"

"He's still in the emergency room. He won't come in. He says that this is all his fault-"

"It's not."

His voice came out a croak. Burt swallowed hard, blinked hard to try to disperse some of the dampness in his eyes. He still felt an irrational surge of fury at the thought of how Finn had not told him about everything that was happening during the honeymoon. But he knew Kurt, and he knew just how good the kid was at acting innocent. He could envision the whole thing, he could imagine exactly what Kurt must have said to twist Finn's arm, exactly the cards he would have played. Hell, it had happened to himself often enough. Kurt knew just what to say to make you feel like he knew what he was talking about, even when he was scared to death himself. Burt lifted his gaze to Carole's.

"I'm not angry with him," he said numbly. "He should've called. But he's not the only one in the wrong here."

Carole shook her head. "He's terrified you'll hate him for what he did."

"I won't."

"He won't believe it when I say it."

He knew what she was getting at. He reached for Kurt's hand again, linked his fingers through his son's. Kurt shivered.

"I'll talk to him later. Just not right now."

She nodded.

* * *

_Why am I so cold?_

That was the first thought that wove its way through the thick fog in his head. The next was the notion of a heavy, painful pressure in the back of his head, and then the raw, dry quality of his eyes despite the fact that they were glued shut. And despite all that, he felt oddly light. Distant. Unreal. And it was cold. Really cold.

His eyes were surprisingly hard to open, as if his lashes had been glued together. When he did finally manage to wrestle them open, he saw dust motes floating in the air before him, swirling and trembling. He blinked a few times, and then, as the mist hovering before him drifted away, realised that he was standing in a corridor. Beige lockers lining the walls. Glossy floors. He frowned, turning in a full circle. He was back at school. Only he couldn't remember how he got there or what he was supposed to be doing there. Or what time it was. Although it must be after school hours, because he could hear no distant voices, see no students passing by into classrooms. In fact, he had a strong feeling that he was completely alone... a chill ran down his spine, and he shuddered. This whole place felt somehow unfamiliar, somehow ghostly. Like a low-budget copy of the real thing. And he felt... strange. He turned on his heel and headed towards the double doors. He would go home. Whatever he was supposed to be doing couldn't be that important. He reached the doors, taking a moment to arch an eyebrow quizzically at the whiteness of the windows. As if a bright light had been positioned just outside and was shining through. It was so strong, so blinding that even when he moved up close to the glass he couldn't see a thing. He shook his head, dismissing the issue. It didn't matter. He took hold of the handle and pulled. Then he pushed. Then he braced his other hand against the wall and pulled again.

And the door still wouldn't budge. Didn't even rattle.

Kurt let go slowly. Maybe some sort of practical joke, courtesy of the football team. He stepped back from the door, his gaze fixed on the blazing whiteness of the doors. Anxiety nipped at his nerves and he turned away, pushing his fringe into its usual sweep. He shuddered again, sighed. His breath sped from his lips in a cloud of steam.

"Hello?" he called, almost sure that he would get no answer. He had no idea what time it was, but he was sure that there was nobody nearby. Still, he tried again, his voice small and thin in the thick silence. "Hello? Anyone?"

Nothing. He frowned, raking his brains for his last memory. Something to do with school. Something had happened in school. Something that he couldn't quite catch hold of. He moved forwards into the corridor, his pace slow, his eyes narrowed.

And then he heard the voices.

They came from somewhere close by, muffled and mumbling, penetrating the still, cool air in short, angry bursts. Arguing voices, then, and yet voices he recognised on some level. He quickened his pace, feeling a rush of hope. Whatever ridiculous prank this was, he was not as isolated as he had first thought. He reached the first classroom along the corridor, paused as the voices grew noticeably louder. Definitely coming from the classroom.

"...freaking insane? I can't live here, I'm a _dude."_

Kurt froze, his heart leaping. He gripped the handle of the door tightly, trying to force himself to push it open. Because what he was listening to couldn't possibly be real, couldn't possibly be happening. This had already happened. This was a moment he remembered very clearly.

"I don't wanna get dressed in front of you. You know, I put my underwear on before I come outta the shower when you're around?"

The door suddenly clicked and swung open, pulling itself out of his hand. Inside the classroom, among the desks and plastic chairs, stood Finn and... himself. Another Kurt. A Kurt who was wearing a black waistcoat and white shirt, and whose face was contorted into a hurt, tearful mess as Finn grew steadily more agitated. He felt that sting again, watched his own hand tighten on the privacy partition that now looked so very pathetic when presented to Finn's unexpected wrath.

"You think I don't see the way you stare at me?" Finn demanded. "How flirty you get? You think I don't know why you got so excited when you found out we were gonna be sharing a room?"

"It's just a room, Finn!" His own voice was a shrill yell, his own eyes red with tears of anger. "We can redecorate it if you want to!"

Kurt snatched at the door, but it had become jammed. No matter how hard he tugged at it, it refused to shut. His heart was thumping hard - he didn't want to hear the next bit. They liked to pretend now that this had never happened.

"Okay. Good!"

Kurt shut his eyes. Finn's words writhed into his mind all the same.

"Well, then the first thing that needs to go is that _faggy _lamp, and then the next thing is this, this _faggy-"_

The door abruptly came loose again and with a violent lurch, Kurt managed to haul it shut with a sharp bang. The rest of the conversation was cut off at once, the voices dropping away into silence. Kurt staggered back from the classroom, gusts of smoke rushing from his lips as he panted. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to empty his mind of the whole thing. It hadn't happened. It wasn't possible. He must be having some kind of hallucination or something... He span away from the classroom, beginning to walk again. Another door. There had to be another way out somewhere.

His trainers skidded abruptly on the floor and he found himself snatching at the lockers for balance. He glanced down, saw that the floor was covered with a strange, misted layer of... frost? No, ice. Real ice that had spread over the glossy ground like a mirror... he stared at it, scuffed at it with his toe. It crumbled to dust beneath him. He wet his lips anxiously, a shudder rolling through him.

"What the... what..."

He lifted his head, staring first in one direction and then the other. The corridor had suddenly taken on an ominous edge, the silence once again so heavy that Kurt found his own hard breathing echoed in violent stabs through the emptiness. It was all so... _wrong._ Kurt whirled to face the double doors, white light still streaming through them. Maybe he should try to get through them again, break the glass.

God, he felt sick...

He could hear more voices coming from the next classroom along. Quieter, more conversational. He inched a little closer, picked out the one line that meant anything among all the rest.

"Hold on, about ten awesome gay jokes just jumped into my head..."

He felt his eyes narrow coldly at the words even now. It still stung. He lifted his chin and moved past the door, giving the handle a short tug as he did so to ensure it remained shut. He had no wish to look inside and see Santana's grinning, merciless face, or the rest of them still carrying on with their club as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Sometimes it was as if they all just went blind for a split second, just cut themselves off.

He could feel blood pounding in his ears. He rubbed his head, then his eyes. His shoes skidded on the icy floor, sending him falling heavily against the lockers once more. His head was beginning to hurt, really hurt, hurt as if it was about to split in two. As if cannons were being repeatedly fired against the inside of his skull. He clawed his way upright, kept walking. The strange thought had slipped into his mind that if he made it to the end of the corridor, everything would be okay. He closed his eyes tightly against the throbbing agony burning in his brain. It was getting steadily worse, steadily more unbearable.

"_Hey!_ I am talking to you!"

He flinched at the sharp, shrill voice, cracked his eyes open. A door to his left had swung ajar, sending a thin strip of yellow light across the floor. He stared at it, felt his lungs grow tight in his chest.

"Girls' locker room is next door."

"What is your problem?"

A pause. A thump as something was tossed onto a bench. "Excuse me?"

"What are you so scared of?"

Kurt clutched the lockers, tried to force in a few breaths of the chilling air. God, he couldn't go through this again. Anything but this. This was the one moment that haunted his nightmares and played out in his mind every time Karofsky shoved him in the corridors or shot him a glare in the car park. This was the moment when everything had gone straight from bad to utterly unbearable.

"Besides you sneaking in here to peek at my junk?"

"Oh, every straight guy's nightmare - that all us gays are out to molest and convert you! Well, guess what, you're _not - my - type."_

"That right?"

Then he had missed it, but now he noticed. He noticed the way Karofsky's voice climbed a few octaves higher, heard the jealousy and anger that tinged his tone in those two words that left his lips. Kurt found himself moving again, as if drawn to the door by some invisible thread, his heart hammering. His head was spinning wildly. He felt so dizzy that he had to lean on the wall as he went, knowing that if he dared to let go he would be on the floor in seconds. And now Karofsky was yelling, a crash echoing through the corridor as his meaty fist hit the lockers.

"Don't push me!"

"Hit me, because it's not gonna change who I am!"

Their voices rang through the empty air like sirens, like the roars of lions. Kurt reached the door but held himself back, suddenly desperate not to look. Dark spots were swarming in on him, dancing before his eyes like bees. He put one hand on the door knob.

"_Get outta my face!"_

"You are _nothing _but a scared little boy who can't handle how extraordinarily ordinary you are!"

He leant forwards just as his own words were cut off. Leant forwards just in time to see the tall figure of Karofsky grab his own shorter body and drag it forwards, saw those lips crash against his. He saw his other self's shoulders bunch tightly, his whole body go rigid in horror. He saw Karofsky's fist clenched tightly in his sleeve...

When he fell, the ground smacked hard against the back of his head. The door had slammed shut, but he could still see it, he could still picture it, as if the image had been burned onto the insides of his eyelids. He could feel his own limbs shuddering, moving on their own, no longer obeying his frantic commands to stay still. The ice on the ground was eating into him, spreading over his body like an infection, even as the agony in his head burned harder than ever... He couldn't breathe any more. He couldn't even part his lips enough to attempt taking a breath. Darkness was roaring in on him, relentless, merciless. He felt his eyes roll back in his head, felt the floor beneath him buck violently. And even in amongst all of this, the only thing he could think about was the suffocating pressure of Karofsky's mouth on his own.

* * *

It was the second time Kurt had suffered a seizure, but that didn't mean that Burt was any more ready for it than he had been the first time. He still jumped up and scrabbled in a frenzied panic for the call button for the nurse, he still fumbled helplessly to catch hold of Kurt's jerking limbs. And like the first time, he still felt tears filling his eyes by the time the nurses arrived and held Kurt's twitching body down, reaching for needles, pulling off his oxygen mask. There was foam dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Burt pressed shaking hands over his face, then forced himself to lower them and watch as the nurses sank the needle into Kurt's skin. Kurt's body was still flinching violently, straining against their hands. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the seizure faded into trembling starts, and then a steady shaking. Doctor Ansten arrived as the nurses were fixing the mask back over Kurt's face, checking his vitals, replacing the IV line he had managed to detach in his episode.

"Its a common side effect of swelling in the brain," the Doctor said softly. "If they don't subside we may have to go into surgery early."

Burt moved back to the bed as the nurses left. He placed a hand on Kurt's head, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with a callous thumb. He looked down at his son's eyelids, watching his pupils rove madly from side to side beneath them. He had never seen Kurt look so fragile, and so completely out of reach. Skin so white and cold that it could have been carved from marble. Shallow breaths that barely misted the plastic mask over his face.

Burt sat down. Doctor Ansten seemed to know that he wasn't going to be able to hear any more, and left quietly. Burt picked up his son's hand and held it in both his own, pressed those small knuckles against his lips.

"Please," he whispered. "Don't take him away from me too. Please..."

His only response was the whining bleeps and whirs of the machines surrounding them.

**Sorry for the wait. Hope you enjoyed.**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee... but I can still write Kurt angst :D**

**Sorry for the wait. Not quite happy with this chapter, but went with it. **

"Wasn't so long ago that you and I were here. Only you were the one rambling in the chair, and I was the one in the bed. Remember that? It was so good seeing you when I woke up. Somewhere in my head, I was worrying about you. But you were right there when I opened my eyes, you were waiting for me. You know I'll wait for you, right? You know I'll do whatever it takes, I'll do anything, to see you okay again. You and me, that's what it's always been. I'll go to the ends of the earth to make you better."

_Beep._

"I'm right next to you, you know. You know I won't give up on you, no matter what happens. And the doctors say that maybe, if things get bad, they might have to... Well, if it comes to that, if something goes wrong in that head of yours, it won't matter to me. I won't think of you differently. I'll just take you back home, and we'll sit down and watch something together. _Chicago, _that's one of your favourites. I know half the words to that god-damn thing, the number of times you've had it on."

_Beep._

"It's not just me, you know. There's a hell of a lot of people who want to see you back on your feet. Seriously, I'm expecting a call from that club of yours any second. Mercedes is still texting Carole. I'm guessing they'll be in here as soon as they can, singing something for you. Better have some good news for them next time Mercedes calls, right? Don't want to be keeping her up all night."

_Beep._

"Wish they didn't have to make you so damn cold, you know. Hope it doesn't mess up your skin routine, huh? You'd hate that, wouldn't you? Sound like a lunatic, muttering away to myself here. It's okay if you can't hear me. If you can, though, I'm here for you. I gotcha, okay?"

_Beep._

"Can you hear me, kid? Please say you can hear me. Just give me something, just squeeze my hand or something, because I'm falling apart here. I'm a mess. I just need you to give me some kind of sign that you're gonna be okay."

_Beep._

"I'm holding your hand. I'm right here."

_Beep._

"Kurt?"

The curtain twitched open suddenly, and Burt Hummel looked up sharply, his grip automatically tightening on Kurt's hand. Every time those curtains opened, he was certain that a surgeon would appear. He was certain that they would start coming at his son with silver instruments, ready to drill into his skull. But it was Carole who slipped into their small cubicle, her eyes ringed with darkness, her face strained. She smiled at him, crossed to the bed.

"How's he doing?" she murmured.

Burt jerked one shoulder in a shrug. It was clear just how Kurt was doing. His skin was covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, his body was shaking violently, his eyes were roving madly beneath their lids. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his skin translucent. His clammy fingers were limp in Burt's hand. It was as if he had already been pulled into another world, a world that Burt couldn't reach, a world that might soon claim him forever...

"Doctor Ansten said maybe you should have a break."

Burt huffed a mirthless laugh. "No."

"Just come and get a coffee from the machine. Stretch your legs a little."

"Carole-"

"I'm not asking you to abandon him, just to remember that you're only human, and that it's four in the morning." She held his gaze, steady, calm. "Two minutes."

Burt sighed heavily, and then squeezed Kurt's hand. "I'm coming right back," he said softly. "Don't you worry, okay?"

He paused, as if waiting for a reply. Carole reached for his arm, and eventually he heaved himself to his feet and shuffled with her out into the corridor. The bright lights of the hospital bored into his eyes, drilled into his head. He drifted aimlessly after Carole, passing others like himself, others who had the same empty gaze and heavy limbs. He went with Carole to the machine at the end of that long, silent corridor. She pressed the buttons and put in the money; he simply watched. He felt suddenly like a child himself, completely lost, terrified of every stranger that passed him by. She stood back while the machine gurgled and poured, turned to face him.

"How're you doing?"

He shook his head. "How's Finn?"

She shook _her_ head, and then pushed both hands over her face. "It'll all be all right," she said quietly, almost to herself. "It has to be."

He stared at the coffee. His throat had suddenly grown tight, as if he had just swallowed something too big to eat. He swallowed, blinked hard through stinging eyes. "What if it's not?"

She seemed to know that there was no answer for that. So she put her arms around him, and he clenched his fists in her cream jacket and breathed in her scent and tried to stop sobbing.

* * *

Kurt had walked the length of the corridor and back again so many times that he had lost count. He had hammered on the great doors and screamed until his voice was hoarse and his knuckles bled. He had screamed for help, clawed at the lockers, searched every inch of the place for a phone or a hammer, or something... And always, there was nothing. Nothing at all, no signal of hope. Every classroom he entered revealed nothing but the things he wished never to think of again. He felt again every biting insult, every blazing punch just like the first time. He cried for a little while, hot tears that hurt to weep. He knew that he was panicking, but he didn't care. He just wanted out.

He had no idea what was wrong, or what had happened to him. He didn't know how long he had been in the school. And worst of all, he didn't know why nobody was coming to help him.

The ice on the floor made it hard to shove at the end doors. The voices ringing through the building made it hard to think of something else to do. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was a blinding whiteness. And his nose wouldn't stop bleeding, no matter what he did. He had stopped trying to wipe it away. The heat of blood on his lip at least gave him something to hold onto, some feeling that would confirm that he was still thinking clearly. That he wasn't going insane. Because that, really, was the only possible answer to everything that was happening to him. He must have at last been driven over the edge by all the bullying.

He had sat down in the corner near the main doors, unable to do anything else to escape and hoping that he might hear someone outside and call for help. Even though he was almost completely certain that there was nobody outside, nobody looking for him. Outside, there was only that blazing whiteness. He had also put his hands over his ears to block out all the shouting that was going on. Maybe that was why he didn't notice when everything went quiet, and that other sound started up. A strange sound that seemed to pulse through his very body, steady and insistent, repetitive, endless... a sound he had a strange feeling had been there for a very long time, but that he just hadn't quite noticed before... He lowered his hands and lifted his head, sniffing, frowning at the sound. A beeping. Like an alarm clock, but a little quieter. Something that could either tick him away to sleep or prey on his mind. He sat motionless for a few minutes longer, and then slowly rose to his feet.

_Just go and look. Has to be better than just sitting here..._

He began to walk, passing by the closed doors of the classrooms he had already been in. He ignored them now. He followed the sound, drawn by some invisible string, driven to it. His head was beginning to throb with agony, but he tried to close himself off to it. Something very important was connected with that sound. There was something important that he was missing, something he had forgotten or failed to notice. Something that would explain everything. He followed the corridor, his pace quickening as he recognised the route he was taking. He was walking towards the canteen. It had to be the canteen, because something had happened there very recently, something he just couldn't quite remember. He was almost running by the time he reached those big blue double doors. He put both hands on them, and then froze.

He took a deep breath. He tried to steady his nerves. His hand slid down the wood, closed over the handle, and then pushed.

The door slid open noiselessly, smoothly, easily, and gave way to a completely different world.

A hospital bed, sectioned off on its own by a curtain the exact same shade of blue as the doors of the canteen. A bed surrounded by bleeping machines that hissed and whirred quietly, gently. It was dark, the lights turned down, the sheets lit mostly by the green glare of the monitors. In the bed was somebody that might once have looked like Kurt. Somebody little more than a body that flinched and twitched, a shivering wreck hooked up to IV lines and wires, a broken puppet tangled in its own strings. He moved closer, stopped short of the bed. He couldn't believe that the person in that bed was himself, even though that person looked just like him... but it couldn't be. His skin wasn't tinged grey like that, his eyes couldn't possibly be that sunken and dark. He couldn't look that fragile, that breakable. And yet...

When that person breathed, when that person's pants clouded the plastic oxygen mask, Kurt was breathing icy air. When Kurt held his breath, that person stopped breathing. When Kurt blinked, the person's eyelids clenched slightly. It couldn't be him... it couldn't...

The curtain flew back, and Kurt flinched violently. And then tensed as his heart juddered to a halt in his chest. The person who had suddenly ducked into the small, curtained cubicle was not Finn, was not his father, was not even Carole. It wasn't Mercedes. It was a tall, muscular boy wearing a red and yellow football jacket. It was a boy Kurt had expected never to see again, especially after their last violent meeting in a cold, damp back yard...

Karofsky looked almost as bad as the body in the hospital bed. His forehead shimmered with tiny beads of sweat and his jaw was working furiously as he dragged the curtain closed, shielding himself from prying eyes. Kurt stared as he listened for anyone that might have seen him, unable to believe what was going on before his eyes. This wasn't a past memory. This couldn't be real. But if it was real, then that body in the bed was him, and Karofsky had sneaked into the hospital to... to do what?

"Did it," Karofsky muttered breathlessly.

"Get out. You're not... I don't want you here." Kurt's own voice sounded strange. Echoing, unreal, distant. He raised it all the same. "D'you hear me? Get away from me!"

Karofsky wasn't looking at him. He was looking down at the person in the bed, his eyes wide, his lips pressed tightly together. His hands had clenched into fists. Kurt didn't recognise that expression on his face, didn't know how to read it, didn't know what it meant. And that scared him, because usually Karofsky only sneered when he looked at Kurt, only smirked or curled his lip in disgust at the sight of him.

"What're you going to do?" he said, knowing by now that Karofsky couldn't hear him.

"Hummel," Karofsky mumbled. "You're... oh god. I never meant for this. I never wanted this to happen to you. I just got so angry..."

He paused, rubbed a hand across his mouth. Kurt gazed at him, not daring to speak, unable to conceive what he was listening to. Karofsky didn't talk like this. Karofsky didn't speak in a voice that shook and sounded as if it was about to give way to tears. And yet here he was.

"Thought you might be lying when you said about brain injury. But you looked so bad. You looked like... I dunno. You scared me. But I heard about what happened at school, and I thought if I don't say it now, I might not get another chance. If I don't explain..."

He broke off, shutting his eyes. Kurt took a step closer, intrigued despite himself. Explain? What was that supposed to mean? Explain what? Karofsky was chewing on his lip. When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter.

"I didn't want to believe it because it didn't fit. I'm not a fag, I don't prance around singing like you do. I had my whole future worked out, and being... _that... _wasn't a part of it. Only then you came along, and every time I looked at you I felt... you must know. You must know how you make me feel, how you screw around with my head. When you're around, I can't think straight. And I wanted to punish you for destroying everything I was supposed to be..."

God, the words coming out of Karofsky's mouth... Kurt couldn't stop staring at him. He felt like he was intruding on something private, something he wasn't supposed to hear. Nobody was supposed to hear this. But he couldn't move, couldn't leave. Karofsky's face was taught, his eyes slightly red, his shoulders trembling with each heavy breath out. Every sentence came in a hesitant rush.

"I hated you. I thought if I destroyed you, it would all stop. I thought I could make it stop. But every time you just kept fighting, you kept coming back. I wanted your strength, your confidence, I wanted to be able to stand up for myself like you could. But all I could do was tear at you..."

Kurt dragged himself forwards. His head was spinning. Everything was beginning to turn foggy. _Not yet, _he thought desperately. _I have to hear this. I can't stop now, I have to..._

Karofsky had moved closer to the bed. He reached out suddenly, the movement clumsy and abrupt, and put his hand on top of the white, still one on the bed. Kurt stiffened. He didn't want Karofsky to touch him, no matter what he said.

"I'm going to turn myself in, Kurt," the footballer said quietly, his voice shaking. "I'm going to do it for you. I'll turn myself in if you promise you'll wake up. And for what I did to you... Maybe one day you'll be able to forgive me."

He stepped back suddenly, releasing his hand. Kurt's head was hurting so much, burning, searing, and whiteness was closing in all around him. And somewhere nearby he could hear that golden laughter that haunted his dreams like a prayer. If he just followed that sound, maybe he could find some release from all this pain, all this horror... He could just make out the dark shadow of Karofsky, still standing beside that hospital bed, shoulders slumped, beaten. Instinctively, Kurt took a few stumbling steps closer, reached out one hand. If he could touch the footballer, physically touch him, then it all had to be real. His fingertips brushed against the jacket, felt the warm skin of his hand - and then Karofsky suddenly turned on his heel and hurried away, vanishing from sight into the whiteness. Kurt stood motionless, unable to breathe.

_I'll turn myself in if you promise you'll wake up..._

Kurt pressed both hands over his ears, shut his eyes tightly, and still the white glare persisted. The laughter was growing distant. His head roared with agony, and he felt his legs give way beneath him. But he never hit the floor. He couldn't even move any more. All he wanted was to follow that laughter, those sounds from his childhood, where maybe he would find peace at last. He didn't want to have to hold on any more. He wanted to let go.

_"I'm back, Kurt. You okay?"_

He winced at the voice. It was too loud, hard to understand. He wanted to ignore it but with every second the whiteness was receding. His body was growing leaden, terrible shudders ripping through him, his skin prickling. He was so cold, so heavy, so tired... Why was it so hard to breathe? God, he wanted it all to stop. The voice was still talking, but everything had become muted... he had nothing but the feeling of the cold plastic on his face, the pain in his head and side, the freezing cold. A hot touch on his hand, calloused skin pressing against his own.

"Please, Kurt. There's only a few hours left. Just try, please, just give us something..."

He knew that voice. He knew who that was. Only he had rarely heard his father sound so broken, so helpless. Something had to be terribly wrong for him to sound like that. Kurt wanted to ask him what was going on, but he couldn't speak. His lips refused to move, and his throat was so dry that nothing could escape it but breathy rasps.

"The Doctor's coming to see you again soon. Doesn't think there's much hope. I just can't lose you like this Kurt, not like this. I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I need you to stay with me, I need... come on, Kurt, just... just..."

He tried to reply, but it didn't work. His voice had shrivelled into nothing. Something thin and reedy that didn't qualify for human speech.

"Kurt?"

The hand had tightened on his. Kurt managed to twitch his fingers, the mammoth effort leaving him exhausted. The voice yelped, grew louder.

"Kurt! It's okay, I'm right here, I'm right next to you..."

"Daauh..."

Did that sound come from him? That wasn't a word, just a jumble of vowels. Either way, to his father it seemed to mean the world. The next moment he was yelling, tears choking his voice, the pressure of his fingers wrapped around Kurt's the only thing anchoring him to reality.

"Nurse! He's trying to call for me, I heard him! And look, he's holding my hand, look!"

Another voice, softer, small hands pulling at his eyelids. He flinched away from the bright torch angled into his face, clenched his eyes shut. Too loud, too sudden. More voices now, everybody speaking at once, asking him to squeeze their hands or open his eyes. All of them felt so hot against his own skin. He cracked his eyes open blearily, saw a bright orange tie swing out of sight. _Ansten? What? _He couldn't see much else, everything was too hazy.

"Daah," he heaved out, the word scratching past his lips.

"Right here, right here, kid, don't you worry..."

And then, all at once, everything was falling away from him at an alarming speed - the bed, the people, the voices... the only thing that remained was Burt's tight grip. Kurt let himself lose it. He had a feeling it was okay to let go now, somehow scheduled in his life for him to sleep. He would be happy to sleep for years if he got the chance. The last thing he heard was his father, sobbing as he spoke, his voice shaking with sheer relief.

"It's gonna be okay, he's gonna be okay... oh god, Carole, he did it..."

He wasn't sure what that meant, but it didn't really seem to matter. He was too tired to care. So he slipped into darkness and let himself stop trying at last.

**Hope you enjoyed Karofsky's scene. Hard to work out how he acts when nobody is watching him. Hmm.**

**Reviews are welcome.**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee... but I can still write Kurt angst :D**

**Soooo... I'm sure a lot of you aren't too happy with the horrifyingly long time it has taken for me to get this chapter up. All I can do is wave a white flag, apologize, and hope that this ending will suffice... Sorry for the wait! This is just a little rounding off to the story, since in my eyes this one has come to its end.**

**Thank you for all the reviews. I'm very happy you all have enjoyed this story.**

When Kurt opened his eyes to the soft hiss of the shower running in the adjacent bathroom and the gentle thuds of footsteps against the ceiling of his basement bedroom, the only pain he felt was a minuscule throb in the back of his head. As he blinked up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house, he felt a small flutter of butterflies in his stomach. Because today was the day. He pushed both hands through his hair, then sat up and threw back his duvet. He had prepared his outfit for the day, picked it out carefully the night before and hung it on his wardrobe ready for the morning. He looked it over from his bed, wondering if it was right. If the tone of the trousers complimented the sweater. If both would compliment his skin tone. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before automatically reaching for his bedside cabinet drawer and fishing out the painkillers inside.

Two weeks after his unexpected and harrowing arrival in the intensive care ward of the hospital, Dr. Ansten had discharged him with strict instructions to return for check-ups throughout the following week to be sure that the swelling would not return, and that no added complications had appeared as a result of his treatment. Over that time, Kurt was strictly confined to the house to rest. Burt had taken time off work for those first few days in order to watch his son like a hawk, practically stalking him from room to room, jumping on every chance to check if he was okay, if there was anything he needed, if he was hungry, or what about a drink of coke, or water if he feels like it...? And Kurt had also been subjected to several intense 'talks' about his 'recent behavior'.

"Why couldn't you tell me?" Burt demanded over and over. "Why didn't you feel you could talk to me? You think I wouldn't care?"

"No, Dad, I've told you, I didn't want to worry you. It was your honeymoon-"

"And you're my _son. _I almost lost you, Kurt. Is it the bullying? Is it because you felt threatened?"

"Dad, I was going to tell you-"

"If anything had happened to you, if you had been taken away from me, everything would have fallen apart. I wouldn't be able to go on. Do you understand that? Kurt, do you understand how much you mean to me?"

Of course, he had been grounded indefinitely. But strangely enough, he didn't care. After that day - what he thought was going to be his _last _day - he had thought he would never see any of his family or friends ever again. He had thought that he would never breathe again, never feel the heat of the sun on his skin, never do any of those thousands of things he still had left to try. Until he woke in that hospital with his father clutching at his hand, he had never realized just how happy he could feel just to be alive. Despite his pride, his fear, his stupidity, whatever it had been that had sent him careering off the path of sanity in that bloody classroom all that time ago and inspired him to convince Finn to let him lie to everyone, he had somehow managed to make it. He had somehow managed to cheat death. And in comparison to that, something as tiny as being grounded for a couple of weeks paled to complete and utter insignificance.

So, slowly, the pain in his ribs and in his head had faded away. The heaviness that resided in his limbs had slipped out again, leaving him feeling a weightless activeness that he hadn't felt for what seemed like a lifetime. Still, Burt made sure that he remained out of school to recover for two weeks after his discharge from the hospital. The extent of excitement for Kurt was a trip to the supermarket with Carole, or evenings with Finn. His step-brother had struggled to look him in the eye when he had first visited Kurt in hospital, his face lined with guilt, his shoulders slumped at his sides. But by the time Kurt was allowed him, the strangeness between them was almost gone. After all, in hospitals there is often little else to do but to talk.

And now, one month on from that horrible day everything had come to a jarring halt, Kurt was about to return to school.

Finn emerged from the bathroom eventually, toweling his hair dry and pulling his shirt straight. He shot Kurt a grin, flicking his eyes over the smaller boy cautiously before speaking. It was a habit he had taken up sometime during Kurt's stay in hospital - a quick once-over, a check, just to make sure before the guard could be dropped.

"Okay, Kurt?" he said, crossing to his bed and pawing through the gap between it and the wall for his rucksack. "Looking forwards to your first day?"

"What, you honestly can't guess the answer to that question?" Kurt smirked, making for the bathroom. "I'm so out of this house, I think I've watched every musical I own about five times now. And I was wrong - there _is _a limit to the amount of musicals I can take."

He shut the door behind him, Finn's sniggers ringing in his ears. It was good to laugh again.

In the bathroom mirror, his reflected self stared back at him with bright green eyes. He couldn't believe that just a few weeks ago he had been gripping the sink, pale and shaking, trying to think of a miracle to save himself from the monster raging inside his own head. And now... that was a million miles away. He looked himself up and down, raked his hands through his hair to feel the back of his head. It still hurt a little, but nothing compared to the agony he had felt before. It was as if that whole nightmare was a completely different world...

By the time Kurt jogged up the stairs and into the kitchen, Carole and set out a plate of waffles for him and Finn was already steaming his way through his second helping. Kurt tossed his bag under the table and sat down, reaching for his plate with a grin.

"How do you feel?" Carole said, watching him as he picked up his fork.

Kurt glanced up at her, smiled. "Ready," he replied simply.

She smiled back, moved away to the counter beside the sink. Kurt tucked in to his breakfast, aware that Finn had shoveled down his last mouthful and was now carrying his plate to the sink, clearly eager to get moving. He was halfway through when Carole returned, the post held cautiously in her hands. She sat down beside him, her air quiet enough to create a sense of unease. Kurt lowered his fork, blinking at her quizically.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just..." She sifted through the letters, picked one out. She placed it on the table in front of him carefully, as if it was made of glass. "... This came for you today."

Kurt stared down at it blankly. His name and address were written in wobbly, blotchy blue ink across the front, almost child-like script. He reached for it, turned it over to find the return address. A juvenile detention center... he hesitated, his mouth suddenly dry. He knew Karofsky had turned himself in to the police shortly after Kurt woke up, and Burt had been adamant that Karofsky not be let anywhere near his son during the police investigation into the 'assault.' He knew that Karofsky had been found guilty of his attack, and charged. What he didn't know was that, at this juvenile detention center that Karofsky had been sent to, the inmates would be allowed to write to their victims. But even as he thought of that, even as the memory of those meaty fists slamming into his face danced through his head, he remembered the other side...

_"I'm going to do it for you... And for what I did to you... Maybe one day... _

_...you'll be able to forgive me."_

Kurt realized that Carole was watching him anxiously. He laid the letter down, turned back to his breakfast. Carole hesitated, reached for his arm to squeeze it supportively.

"Of course, you don't have to-"

"I'm going to open it," he said without looking up. "I'm going to read it. But it can wait until later."

She smiled, relaxed. Behind them, Finn shoved his way through the door. "What's keeping you, did a single tiny hair come out of place?"

"That shirt doesn't match those shoes," Kurt replied, standing up and crossing to the sink with his empty plate.

"Nobody cares..."

"Give it time, you'll start thinking about it halfway through second period."

Carole followed them to the door. "Remember, Kurt, if you feel like it's getting too much, I can pick you up at any time..."

As Kurt stepped over the threshold and into the morning sunlight, he felt some kind of weight drop from his shoulders. He blinked against the glare, tugged his sweater straight. Again he felt that flutter of nervousness in his heart, felt his lungs tighten. But now, it wasn't terror. It was excitement. It was the thrill of knowing that, for once, everything was going to be okay.

"Kurt!"

Finn was waiting, revving his car, waving at him to hurry. Kurt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was ready.

Today was a good day to be alive.

**Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it :)**

**SUPRNTRAL LVR.**


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